Slashdot Mirror
Gulf Stream Slowdown in Progress?
peacefinder writes "Researchers report that one process which drives the Gulf Stream is slowing down. As that current is part of the global oceanic heat conveyor which keeps parts of Europe and North America warmer than would be expected for their latitudes, such a slowdown might lead to abrupt climate change."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/
A chilling account.
As it were.
It would be interesting to see the history of the gulf stream. Could it be a fluke of recent development?
At no point in earth's history has climate stood still. At no point in earth's history has all life been wiped clean from it. The earth is fine; if people go the way of the dinosaur, then so be it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268380/
;-)
is more appropriate...
Paul B.
I ruled at that game, so I'm fine, right?
...to move to California.
Now all I have to worry about is the ground shaking and opening up, me falling in to the resulting hole, then being covered by a mudslide with a bushfire on top.
Oh, and maybe bears and mountain lions feasting on my protruding limbs as I flail for help.
But at least I'll be warm.
-EvilMagnus
A TV program a while back highlighted research investigating just why huge indigenous populations of Central America mysteriously disappeared around 800.
Lakebed sediment cores suggested a fairly severe multi-year drought around that time that was linked (through that Atlantic conveyor) to some severe winters in northern Europe. That drought was thought to disrupt agriculture that those cultures relied upon.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Water flowing
More water flowing
Even more water flowing
Water still flowing
Water flowing
Water flowing
Still interesting?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Here on the Canadian West Coast global warming has been great. Winters are getting milder and milder and we've have had some great summers in the last few years.
The only downsides have been a few pesky forest fires, and annual water restrictions.
As usual, this will only become an issue once the majority of people make the connection between climate change, its origins, and the resulting unpleasantness. (Starvation, war for dwindling resources, mad max, etc.)
Yes, it will be sad if Europe reverts to the temperature range of Canada or Russia. (French Ice Wine, anyone?) On the other hand, NJ and much of the east coast is also warmer than it should be due to the Gulf Stream.
No more people moving from NY/VT/NH to Florida, etc., for the climate and ruining our tax base!
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
You sound like a typical American who is too busy whining and consuming to educate yourself and do something productive or beneficial.
So let me make a few corrections to your uneducated diatribe:
Wind farms don't really generate enough power to make the disruption to the local environs worth it, although there is work being done on high altitude wind generation strategies that are promising.
Nuke: Most people are so much Anti-Nuke as they are Anti-Huge Catastrophe or Anti-Waste that's dangerous for zillions of years. Maybe if someone actually ran a successful nuclear power generation site that both made money and did not generate waste capable of killing large numbers of people, attitudes would change. But the Americans, French and Japanese are still running ancient nukes at a loss, and the Germans gave up on the newest 7th generation because they couldn't make is safe enough (the Chinese are still trying though).
Oil: Man, where did you get the forest thing? There are so many things wrong with oil I don't know where to start, 1: to buy oil you must deal with Bad People (tm), 2: Oil will not last forever and when it does run out society is screwed. 3: Burning Oil causes air pollution 4: Burning Oil contributes to global climate change.
Coal: Burning coal is worse than oil in all cases, still there is work being done on coal gasification which is promising.
Most hydrogen does not come from electrolysis of water, it comes from cracking natural gas. Still that's just as useless as electrolysis, though lots of clever folks are working on other methods. The one I find most interesting is using microbes & biomass.
So your summary becomes "So there is no one answer, that meets the world's energy needs, that is known today. However there are many, many possibilities. However, none of those possibilities yield so much energy as to allow for the rampant consumerism and gluttony that we see today. So something must change; either the reduction of consumption, the invention of a new energy source (like cold fusion) or both"
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
From the first link:
"The thermohaline circulation is a global ocean circulation. It is driven by differences in the density of the sea water which is controlled by temperature (thermal) and salinity (haline). In the North Atlantic it transports warm and salty water to the North."
Since the Argo project measures these attributes along with current direction and possibly speed, it is the perfect way to either confirm or disconfirm this finding. If Dr. Wadhams is correct, in his prediction that the poler ice caps will melt by 2020 the earliest, then we can be in for a very wild ride as the climate changes.
What do we do?
a ct3
Well, we know that there is one very effective way of lowering temperatures: large volcanic eruptions. We have enough nukes to create this effect on our own in a controlled way, and enough processing power to try to get it right. To me, this would seem to be one of the few approaches that could be used to buy us some time to invest in new technologies that would help us out in the long term.
Also, for those who are interested, the New Yorker just ran an interesting-but-depressing three-part series on climate change.
Parts one and two are online here: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050425fa_f
That's right: I'm gumby dammit.
You are also wrong about wind farms. There's a huge one not far from my parents' place. The San Gorgonio Pass http://www.awea.org/projects/california.html#SanGo rgonioPass, as you can see in the link, was estimated to generate about 800 M kWh in 1998. I may not work for So. Cal Edison, but I'm judging they feel it's a fairly good ROI, since they're constantly putting new windmills in and experimenting on new types there. It's also fairly close to some major population centers, though.
As for the nuke... Be honest. "zillions" of years for the waste to be safe? Depends, but "thousands" is a much more honest estimate. The "huge catastrophe" comment? I'll take 1 little nuke catastrophe every 50-100 years over the daily harm being done by coal power plants. At least then my life insurance will pay out instead of failing to renew after my 10-year bout with lung cancer. And yes, I did grow up in a town that suffered a nuclear disaster. And yes, I know people from those crazy cancer clusters. It's still safer than coal.
Of course I'm of the opinion that rather than try to maintain and expand our infrastructure to transport energy all over the place, I'd like to see a windmill on every large piece of property, as well as a few on top of every tower or skyscraper. Decentralized, distributed computing has worked really well for a lot of projects, and I think following that model for energy production is a good idea. It'd end up driving down the unit costs for this sort of thing, put more money into R&D for this technology than the governments ever will, and just basically be a Good Thing(TM). Of course to really be practical we need new energy storage systems to replace batteries, since we all know wind and solar power don't perform very well in snowy, icy conditions.
Not to mention cold fusion, and everything else that should be researched further or simply made practical.
For the record I do agree entirely with your summary, I just have problems with a few of your points.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
Briefish synopsis:
Recent measurements show that one of the three mechanisms believed to drive the Gulf Stream is decreasing more than expected. The result could be that the Gulf Stream turns off, meaning that warm currents from the equator are no longer brought to Northern Europe and North East America. This may happen in a decade, which might decrease our temperature by 5-8 degrees. Or it might happen over the next couple of centuries, which might actually be beneficial because it could counteract global warming. Or it might not happen at all, since no-one can actually predict this stuff.
Seems to me that we'd be better off not worrying about it. And no, I'm not a denier of global warming, I don't drive a SUV. Actually, I model fluid flow for a living, albeit on much smaller scales than oceanographic, and the kind of uncertainty involved in this almost makes it non-science. There are much more important issues than this to get worked up about - for example watch the videos on this site, and then try to tell me you care more about the Gulf Stream. Note that I think it's great this research is ongoing, but until they actually have something to report, the media should look into things that we actually know about, such as [insert your favourite here].
Most coal gasification projects significantly reduce the amount of radioactive coal waste output. I don't think it makes sense to accept radio active waste in the atmosphere from any source. Nor do I think it makes sense to operate a nuclear reactor which does not reprocess the fissile material to the greatest extent possible. All the production nuclear plants that I'm aware of are old designs which a: are inherently unsafe and rely on external controls to mediate the reactions and b: only cycle the fissile material through the reaction once (with the notable exception being France). I really think you are marginalizing the dangers of nuclear waste and nuclear accidents too much, but I'll agree that ultimately both are manageable.
Energy transport is a very important point, I'm glad you brought it up. I read somewhere that the in the US over 1/3 of all energy generated is consumed by transport of energy and presumably it's more less the same all over the developed world. Additionally industry holds on to infrastructure (both energy generating and energy consuming) too long so that the benefits of increased efficiency come too slowly to the market. So given these two factors the majority of the energy generated in the world is never even consumed by the end users, you could make a pretty accurate comparison with this and the municipal water system of Mexico city.
As far as the "Whiny American" comment... I stand by it, I'm sick of these sentiments held by Americans. It's almost as if they believe that if I don't my utmost to consume & destroy that I am (or want them to be) an indigent farmer working in a collective in North Korea. It's perfectly possible to live a fulfilling life consuming a tiny fraction of the energy and producing a tiny fraction of the waste of what the average American does.
By the way I lived in the US for 10 years, and still hold a US passport, so it's not I've never seen how Americans really live and I'm just griping about things I've seen on TV.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
As unlikely as that might sound to most of you, that is exactly what the graphs show happening if everything keeps moving in the direction that it is moving today...
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
You forgot about solar energy.
It's safe, clean and environmentally friendly, plus the current thinking is for distributed collection at each building, where excess energy that can't be stored can be shared with others via the electricity grid.
Seems like the most promising energy replacement to me...
Solar energy is not viable here in the cold and cloudy northern europe with short days in winter time that's bound to get even colder...
I really think you are marginalizing the dangers of nuclear waste and nuclear accidents too much, but I'll agree that ultimately both are manageable.
Not really. The actual risk of nuclear power plants is quite small. Stack the lives lost by every single nuclear accident or byproduct storage, or even the theoretical lives lost (which is actually zero so feel free to not do that) due to working in the industry over the last 50 years against a decade or even a few years of coal.
Chernobyl was the classic case of the big nasty happening. Yet the lives lost due to it are suprisingly very small. Even factoring in the increased *risk* of developing a cancer from the fallout. Three Mile Island was, shall we say, a bit more contained. Again, perform a body count as with Chernobyl.
Now compare this to the direct and undisputed lives lost do to coal mining and use. I suspect if you took an "third party" (alien if you like) and gave them the data and an options, they'd consider the coal option insane by comparison. Most people I show the data to agree. It's usually a "WTF?!" moment. The rest simply refuse to believe we haven't had more accidents that we just don't know about, or decide to go research it on their own (yay!). They have all come back from their own research in agreeent.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
So is it really LESS pollution to drive an electric car than an oil powered one?
Yes. Large power plants can generate power more efficiently while at the same time are able to more effectively put pollution controls in place. While they can put scrubbers and filters on their smokestacks, you would never see that on a car's exhaust.
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
The fundamental philosophy of the most vocal group of "environmentalists" is that I should treat the planet (or something) as being more important than human life.
And you're expressing the fundamental philosophy of the most vocal corporate public relations departments -- that human life is somehow separate and independent of the global environment. We can't thrive without a healthy environment. We can't exist without a reasonably functional environment.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
But if we pump enough greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to overcome the counter-pressure built up in the poles... It could become a runaway greenhouse effect, which I believe were the words I used. In that scenario, our weather will head for a new equilibrium much like that of Venus.
By the way, a runaway greenhouse effect does not have to occur quickly. it could happen over thousands of years (or more). The telling sign will be if the earth is absorbing more energy than it is radiating back to space. If we have a sustained condition such as that, the earth is heating up and will continue to until it reaches a new balance (radiation in = radiation out).
FYI: There was recently an article on slashdot about this very condition being analyzed from space. It appears that we are there now, but we could have a few thousand years to fix the problem before our oceans are gone. If you think it is silly to talk about our oceans boiling away, please consider that water->steam is just another phase transition like ice->water, just a little further down the same road we are currently traveling.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
They must be teaching only one method of hydrogen production in schools these days, that of "electrolysis". Strangely enough, this method seems to be the only method the public "knows" about to produce hydrogen. In fact, it is so "known", that one time I went to an alternative energy show here in Phoenix, and some representatives of "hydrogen technology" were showing that cute model (which one can buy Fry's Electronics and other places) which take a solar cell which generates electricity, electrolyses water, the H2 and O go into a PEM stack and out come power to turn a small moter/fan.
This is wrong...
The only kind of "commercial" hydrogen you will see generated this way is at a few test "fill up" stations in Europe (IIRC - or maybe Canada), and also "Brown's Gas" generators for industrial Hydro/Oxy welding and similar processes. Why don't you see it more?
Because it is a very inefficient manner of generating hydrogen!
Only in those instances (like industrial welding) where you can't easily store the cryo liquid form of the gases on site, and you need to use such a system on-demand, does it make sense to generate it in this manner. Those filling stations in Europe (or whereever)? A gimmick to placate a public which doesn't know any better. Anyone with half a brain can see that such generation of hydrogen is not a 100% conversion system of the power from the electricity to the hydrogen - powerline losses alone sink that idea, not to mention the fact that electrolysis is horribly inefficient. So where do we get most of our hydrogen?
Mainly from two sources - natural gas deposits and hydrocarbon cracking at refineries. When a natural gas well is "pumped" (well, it mostly isn't, because it is naturally under pressure, at least at the beginning), the first stuff to come out is generally hydrogen, then helium (which is REALLY running out fast), then the other gasses. These wells account for the majority of hydrogen.
Hydrocarbon cracking involves a process in which hydrocarbons are cracked via a superheated steam method at a refinery. It is a much more efficient method of getting hydrogen, but itself relies on hydrocarbon feedstocks, thus "fossil fuels". Though not used in industry anymore, it is also possible to crack water into H2 and O using superheated steam passed over red-hot iron. The conversion essentially creates a very big amount of rust (basically binding the oxygen to the iron), and isn't a practical method today, as it requires a lot of energy input into the system.
These last two methods would likely be better worked if coupled with solar furnaces or a nuclear heating system - indeed, even electrolysis becomes viable if a large enough source of electricity could be found that the losses are negligible to the entire output. Nuclear power is the answer here, but even it has a limited run in the long view.
The truth is, unless we develop some fantastic technology to do some real undersea exploration for fossil fuels (not likely), or we rape our coastlines via off-shore drilling (which leak - it is inevitable) - we are going to peak on all of our fuel sources at some point in the future (even coal, though it has a much longer future than the rest - but I wouldn't want to live in that hell - imagine 1800's Britain at the height of the industrial revolution, and all the ugly air - worldwide).
In a sane world, we would already be working to get off this planet and expand outward, while we still had the resources to acheive this and find other resources out on the other planets, moons, and asteroids. Somehow, though, I don't think this idea is going to bear fruit until it is much too late - we then become Easter Islanders...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
A disaster in Europe, or elsewhere in the world, has economic reprocussions everywhere else.
The flip-side to buffering trading partners from disaster (mutually beneficial) is being desimated by enormous disasters they encounter.
International trade has never been greater.
A deep freeze in Europe would probably throw the whole world into a depression, not to mention send luddites panicking in the streets.
We're all in this together, unfortunately. When a significant part of the globe gets fucked up, the economic wheels that make American SUVs will stop.
Oil,coal,hydrogen and nuclear are all out.... So here is the solution, PEOPLE!!
Take the third world population and have them run in People Wheels(tm) just like hamster wheels, to generate electricity! After they have run themselves to death we can recycle them as feed for the next generation of people wheels.....
Yes, its sarcasm, get over it.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
BTW, the reason hydrogen makes sense is that conversion efficiency is 70% oil/gas->hydrogen, followed by up to 90% conversion to electricity (it can be done this efficiently, though it needs to be done more cheaply). That gives you an overall efficiency of about 60%, which is better than we can currently do. Even if you use a less expensive 50% efficient hydrogen->electricity converter, it is more efficient than a car (including those cool hybrid cars!).
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
I was trying to be funny. But even I don't think it was funny enough to get modded to 5.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Erm. I think you are both wrong.
First, the "ice age" connection is not due to the energy it takes to melt ice. Rather it is due to the very topic of grandparent article. Namely the theory is that in the past the gulf stream shutdown (which is due to the fact that melted ice is less dense than salt water) led to a cooling of the European land mass, leading to extension of glaciers down from the north pole, leading to a higher albedo Earth, leading to cooling of the whole planet.
However, this time around we have higher GHG concentrations than in previous cycles and high projected global mean temperatures, so it seems unlikely that Europe will cool to the point where increased snowcover will lead to an ice age, even in the case of complete gulf stream collapse.
But I don't think that any respectable climatologist talks about runaway greenhouse effects with the Earth anymore. While there may be significant positive feedbacks in the climate system, there is no evidence that they are that large. As a climate scientist myself, I believe that we do need to reduce our GHG emissions as much as is feasible in order to avoid all sorts of unfortunate climate changes, but boiling the earth's oceans just isn't in the cards.
Maybe we can prevent the possible new ice age if we burn a LOT more fossil fuels. So we can melt all the ice and the whole planet will be a very warm place because of increased greenhouse gases...