THIS POST IS A PRESENTATION OF THE FINDINGS IN A 2017 PAPER [LINK] BY PROFESSOR YIM WYSS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG WHERE SURFACE TEMPERATURE PHENOMENA, NORMALLY UNDERSTOOD ONLY IN TERMS OF THE ATMOSPHERIC FORCINGS OF AGW CLIMATE CHANGE, ARE EXAMINED IN TERMS OF GEOLOGICAL CLIMATE FORCINGS AS PROPOSED BY JAMES EDWARD KAMIS [LINK][LINK]

1. WYSS 2017: The 2017 paper “Geothermal Heat: An Episodic Heat Source in Oceans by Professor Yim Wyss of the University of Hong Kong  provides more details for the thesis first proposed by James Edward Kamis [LINK] in 2014 and described in a related post on this site [LINK] that an understanding of the El Nino and other anomalous ocean warming events is greatly enhanced by the inclusion of known geothermal forcings. Dr Wyss acknowledges that “the sun is the first order driver of climate” but emphasizes the importance of second order drivers such as geothermal heat when they offer a better explanation for regional variations in climate not explained by AGW climate change theory.
2. Specifically, in this study, Dr. Wyss tests the James Kamis theory  that the El Nino and The Blob ocean warming anomalies of the Pacific Ocean are driven by geothermal heat [LINK] . The unusually strong El Nino events of 1998 and 2016 created not only local warming in the South Pacific location of its origin but also sufficiently high global mean surface temperature for climate science to claim these years as  the “hottest on record” that are claimed to provide the needed evidence of AGW climate change and the need for climate action.
3. Dr Wyss writes that the geologically active region known as the Pacific Ocean Ring of Fire (diagram above) contains 75% of the world’s active volcanoes. As such this region contains significant geothermal heat sources to create the two monster El Nino warming events noted above as well as the so called “Northern Pacific Blob”, a large mass of water that is warmer than the surrounding water (shown in red).
4. Currently, geological forcing of climate by way of plate tectonics is not taken into account as there appears to be a strong atmosphere bias in the climate science of AGW climate change. Yet, the data show a significant association between sub-marine geological activity and El Nino ocean warming [LINK] . The Wyss paper identifies three significant volcanic eruptions under the Pacific Ocean from 2013 to 2015 leading up to the exceptionally strong 2015/2016 El Nino that was the longest running El Nino event of this century.
5. The first two volcanic eruptions were initially submarine but burst into the atmosphere after creating new islands. The third eruption was a monster that broke through to the atmosphere with explosive basaltic lava flows at a temperature of 1000C. The significant impacts of these events were record high sea surface temperature in the Northeast Pacific Ocean, record high summer temperatures in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, acceleration of Arctic sea ice loss that fall, and catastrophic ecological events of the time including coastal algal blooms and coral bleachings. These geological events are listed below.
6. 2013: March: Submarine eruption of the Nishino-Shima volcano with warming of sea surface temperature. November: sub-aerial eruption of Nishino-Shima and a new island is formed adjacent to Nishino-Shima. This island later grew to more than 200 times its initial size. Nov-Dec: A patch of warm surficial water spread into the Gulf of Alaska and formed the Northern Pacific Blob helping to create the high pressure condition called the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge. 2014: February: SST 2.5C above normal. June: The blob, reaching a size of 1600 km by 1600 km and 91 meters deep, spread to the coast of North America from Alaska to Mexico. July-September: the peak of this event with over 9 million cubic km at its peak with rapid Arctic sea ice melt. December: Submarine and sub-aerial eruption of Hunga-Tonga volcano. Throughout the year: Episodic eruption of Nishino-Shima with lava flows. 2015:  January:  Coral bleaching in the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef.  March: Severe Tropical Storm PAM, Vanuatu’s worst natural disaster. May-June: Eruption of the Wolf Volcano in the Galapagos.
7. The conditions listed above contributed to the strong 2015-2016 El Nino event. Of the eruptions listed, the most powerful in terms of geothermal heat released was the Nishino-Shima volcano located 940 km south of Tokyo. The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) was near the top of the VEI scale. The continued growth of the new island next to Nishino-Shima with episodic lava flows implies much greater geothermal heat flows than inferred from the eruption events and explains the long sustained blob which had reached a maximum area of 9 million square km in a region stretching from Alaska to Mexico. The record Arctic sea ice melt in the summer and fall of 2014-2015 is best explained in terms of this very warm and very large blob that had extended all the way to the Gulf of Alaska that is connected to the Arctic Sea through the Bering Strait and the Chukchi sea . 
8. The second eruption of the Hunga-Tonga volcano lasted from November 2014 to January 2015. The volcanic explosivity intensity was estimated as VEI=2 based on the volume of erupted materials and a plume height of 7 to 10 km. The large quantities of nitrogen and phosphorus in the water from the long eruption caused an algal bloom and a red tide that caused some alarm in its AGW climate change interpretation. The Wolf volcano in the Galapagos erupted from May 25 to June 2, 2015 with VEI=4 achieved mostly because of the large amount of sub-aerially erupted materials. The SST pattern for this period recorded by NOAA satellites matches the geographical pattern of these three volcanoes (Nishino-Shima, Hunga-Tonga, and Wolf). 

SUMMARY:  THE WYSS 2017 PAPER PROVIDES EVIDENCE OF A SIGNIFICANT ROLE OF GEOLOGICAL FORCES IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF OCEANIC TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES CONSISTENT WITH CLAIMS BY JAMES EDWARD KAMIS THAT GEOLOGICAL FORCES CANNOT BE IGNORED IN THE STUDY OF THE EARTH’S SURFACE TEMPERATURE PHENOMENA. IN THIS LIGHT THE EXCLUSIVE RELIANCE OF AGW CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE ON ATMOSPHERIC FORCING IN THE STUDY OF CLIMATE IN GENERAL AND OCEANIC TEMPERATURES IN PARTICULAR IMPLY AN ATMOSPHERE BIAS THAT LIKELY HINDERS THE ABILITY OF THIS SCIENCE TO PROVIDE A CONSISTENT AND CREDIBLE EXPLANATION OF SURFACE TEMPERATURE PHENOMENA. {LINKS TO RELATED POSTS [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK]  [LINK]  [LINK] }

POSTSCRIPT#1: ANOTHER PAPER FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Here is a 2007 research paper from the University of Hong Kong about the Coronavirus I found on the Rafe Champion site [LINK] .

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus as an Agent of Emerging and Reemerging Infection: Vincent C. C. Cheng, Susanna K. P. Lau, Patrick C. Y. Woo, and Kwok Yung Yuen, State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Department of Microbiology, Research Centre of Infection and Immunology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.

1. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus (SARS-CoV) is a novel virus that caused the first major pandemic of the new millennium (89, 180, 259). The rapid economic growth in southern China has led to an increasing demand for animal proteins including those from exotic game food animals such as civets. Large numbers and varieties of these wild game mammals in overcrowded cages and the lack of biosecurity measures in wet markets allowed the jumping of this novel virus from animals to human (353, 376). Its capacity for human-to-human transmission, the lack of awareness in hospital infection control, and international air travel facilitated the rapid global dissemination of this agent. Over 8,000 people were affected, with a crude fatality rate of 10%. The acute and dramatic impact on health care systems, economies, and societies of affected countries within just a few months of early 2003 was unparalleled since the last plague. The small reemergence of SARS in late 2003 after the resumption of the wildlife market in southern China and the recent discovery of a very similar virus in horseshoe bats, bat SARS-CoV, suggested that SARS can return if conditions are fit for the introduction, mutation, amplification, and transmission of this dangerous virus (45, 190, 215, 347). Here, we review the biology of the virus in relation to the epidemiology, clinical presentation, pathogenesis, laboratory diagnosis, animal models or hosts, and options for treatment, immunization, and infection control.
2. SARS-CoV is one of 36 coronaviruses in the family Coronaviridae within the order Nidovirales. Members of the Coronaviridae are known to cause respiratory or intestinal infections in humans and other animals (Fig. 1). Despite a marked degree of phylogenetic divergence from other known coronaviruses, SARS-CoV together with bat SARS-CoV are now considered group 2b coronaviruses (190, 282). Primary isolation of SARS-CoV was achieved by inoculation of patients’ specimens into embryonal monkey kidney cell lines such as FRhK-4 or Vero E6 cell lines, which produced cytopathic changes at foci, where cells become round and refractile within 5 to 14 days (259). These initial cytopathic changes spread throughout the cell monolayers, leading to cell detachment within 24 to 48 h. Subcultures can be made on Vero (monkey kidney), Huh-7 (liver cancer) (301), CACO-2 (colonic carcinoma) (79) or other colorectal cancer, MvLu (mink lung epithelial) (104), and POEK and PS (pig) cell lines (122). Transmission electron microscopy of infected cell lines showed characteristic coronavirus particles within dilated cisternae of rough endoplasmic reticulum and double-membrane vesicles. Clusters of extracellular viral particles adhering to the surface of the plasma membrane were also seen. Negatively stained electron microscopy showed viral particles of 80 to 140 nm with characteristic surface projections of surface proteins from the lipid envelope (89, 180, 259). SARS-CoV has a higher degree of stability in the environment than other known human coronaviruses. It can survive for at least 2 to 3 days on dry surfaces at room temperature and 2 to 4 days in stool. The electron microscopic appearance and genome order of 5-replicase (Orf1ab)-structural proteins (spike [S]-envelope [E]-membrane [M]-nucleocapsid [N])-poly(T)-3 are similar to those of other members of the Coronaviridae (236). Similar to other coronaviruses, it is an enveloped positive-sense singlestranded RNA virus with a genome size of almost 30 kb. The genome is predicted to have 14 functional open reading frames (ORFs) (290). Their functions and putative roles are outlined in Table 1. Two large 5 terminal ORFs, ORFs 1a and 1b, encode 16 nonstructural proteins, 7 of which are likely to be involved in the transcription and replication of the largest genome among all RNA viruses (92, 95, 158, 166, 242, 284, 309,
   316, 343, 414). The two proteases are involved in post translational
   proteolytic processing of the viral polyprotein.  {LINK TO FULL TEXT PDF 2007-Coronavirus-warning }

POSTSCRIPT#2: DEEP OCEAN VIDEOS