 It is common practice, when responding to another person's comment, to make sure you know what you are in fact responding to. You clearly didn't, Scott. I was replying to Stephen discussing how the alleged added energy to the surface from downward IR from the atmosphere was "used up" by evaporation, preventing it from having any effect on the subskin. OF COURSE there is IR absorbed by the ocean surface, warming it. But it's from the SUN, not from the atmosphere. I wasn't talking about any IR from below, I wasn't talking about any IR being absorbed. I was talking about the conceptual DWLWIR ‘flux' not having to be "used up" by evaporation at all, which seems to be Stephen's contention. 