Cinthia Labails

Reply [to “Comments on “Deep‐Penetration Heat Flow Probes Raise Questions About Interpretations From Shorter Probes’”]

We welcome the comments by Fisher et al. and Davis et al., which provide a useful opportunity to discuss further the reliability of oceanic heat-flow measurements, especially from short probes, in greater detail than was possible in our first presentation. A problem with our presentation actually resides in its provocative headline: our results only raise questions about the interpretations of old, isolated measurements that were obtained using short penetration probes, mainly Bullard-type probes made with three sensors disposed along a 2-m-long lance. Particularly, where underground water circulation is suspected, there is no question that only a large number of closely-spaced (by a few tens to a few hundreds of meters) measurements allow the determination of the heat-flow local variability.