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.
...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.
- Global warming adds more pure water to the sea in the North Atlantic
- Gulf stream slows
- Slower Gulf stream cools the temperatures
Sounds to me like a natural thermostat.Also a lower temperature sea will increase the likelyhood of dissolving the extra CO2 into the seawater.
Most of this kind of research (models) are focused on extrapolation in this case the time-frame (using a couple of years +-100 to predict too much 800 or more and using limited knowledge gained from other sources such as core samples).
And I'm not trying too discredit the sciences of core samples etc. It is just that their findings are still being refined too.
Models are a great tool to research complex behaviour. But those that use their findings blindly as fact are bound to be humiliated.
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.