Originally Posted By: Quarter Acre
That helps my understanding a lot Bocomo. Thanks for the info! I always thought that the water near the bottom would be thermally warmed by the surrounding earth, kind of like how a cave is always 60 degrees F. I would, now surmise that the opposite is happening. The surrounding earth is being overpowered and cooled by the cooler, sinking water.

I'll have to put more thought into this to really wrap my head around it.


Your first instinct is still correct, though! There is definitely heat transfer between the pond water and the pond bottom. If the ground is still very hot it will slow the cooling of the pond when air temperatures drop. That's probably as far as I want to go in terms of a scientific explanation. The dynamics of heat transfer in open systems is beyond my expertise as I'm a biochemist and much better at closed systems than open ones.

Last edited by Bocomo; 12/13/18 11:39 AM.