Doubts about the hiding ocean heat

The latest episode in the claim that  heat is "hiding" in the ocean is  here, reporting a study led by a Prof. England.  Just a few preliminary notes:

The study offers an explanation for the pesky fact (for Warmists) that there has been a "standstill" in the earth's temperature for about 17 years.   Prof. England calculates that stronger winds in the Pacific in recent years would have pushed hot surface water to below 700 meters and that the heat is just lurking there to come up again some time and warm us.  So the heat is not absent, just hiding.

There is much to note there.  The first is that Prof. England has spent at least a decade denying that there has been a temperature standstill.  Yet when it suits him he suddenly admits it.  His attachment to the facts is clearly very opportunistic and not at all confidence-inspiring.  Would his calculations survive scrutiny by someone who knows all about fluid dynamics?

Secondly, he implicates a NATURAL process in what it going on  -- something Warmists have always sedulously avoided.  Why could not ALL the processes involved be natural?  And there is every reason to regard the standstill as natural and requiring no particular explanation. It is entirely consistent with the meandering pattern of slight temperature changes over the last century or more.

Thirdly he speculates that the warm water is hanging out below 700 meters, when the extreme limit of the mixing layer is normally given as 200 meters. How did it get down there?

And how long is that "hot" water going to stay down there?  It is very cold in the ocean deeps so normal convective processes would  ensure that the "hot" water would rapidly become cold.  As such it's unlikely to warm anything in the future

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).