Slashdot Mirror
Failing Ocean Current Raises Fears of Mini Ice Age
Designadrug writes "This article from Newscientist paints a picture of a major climate control mechanism teetering on the brink:
"The ocean current that gives western Europe its relatively balmy climate is stuttering, raising fears that it might fail entirely and plunge the continent into a mini ice age. The dramatic finding comes from a study of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream.""
Depending on whom you ask, this could be a global warming issue. This is something I researched back in high school and got weird looks, but the logic goes like this:
1. Temperature warms up. Surface ice in the northern/southern reaches melt. This is something we've been seeing with the shrinking glaciers/nothern ice cap/Antartic icebergs melting.
2. Ocean rises, which causes a lowering of the ocean temperature from the influx of cold water.
3. With ocean levels higher, the ocean is able to absorb more energy, which shuts down the warm ocean currents.
4. Without the warm ocean currents, weather patterns are altered. Cold air that would have been warmed by the ocean currents remain cold. In time, the water that melted is converted into ice.
5. With the altered weather patterns and no warm air, the ice age comes into being. The more ice that forms, that more sunlight redirected back into space.
6. This continues until enough build up of ocean warmth.
Or - something like that. It's been a decade or two since I studied it, and I'm sure a meteorologist would do a better job. But what I do recall is that a good chunk of research shows this process can take place in as little as three years - which means it might be a good time to start buying some land down in Mexico....
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The temperature differential that drives that current has shrunk slightly and therefore as lost some momentum. Then Europe gets cold for a while, things even out, and everyone is happy.
Not really. Europe, and North America get colder yes (and to be honest I'm not all that happy about that, living in Canada at the moment), but the rest of the trapped heat from global warming doesn't magically vanish, it simply gets pushed elsewhere - so think more more heat (and droughts) for Africa, more energy in the Carribean to help power hurricanes etc.
This is why the term "global climate change" is preferred these days. While there is "global warming" in that there is more energy trapped and retained in the system, that doesn't mean it's going to be evenly distributed as warming, it just means more energy in the system which can result in more dramatic swings and changes in climate.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Indeed, this was in the press before the movie. Discover posted the original article on their website when the movie came out.
original article in Nature
news article in Nature
Yes, i have seen that in several articles, that global warming is happening at a MUCH faster rate at the poles than at the equator. :(
Sorry dont have any links tho
Actually the movie was based on info and theories from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. They just added a bunch of bad science for plot devices. Take a look at these two links: Little Ice Age and Abrupt Climate Change
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
The article only mentions 5 data points over ~50 years, 1957, 1981, 1992, 1998 and now 2005.. which is not a lot to go on, likewise it mentions that the last time the current stopped was 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, and that it may have slowed down between 1300-1850 which was a "mini" ice-age.
I assume that the last 2 things were speculation, since the only way I could think of these things being measured is if it's somehow preserved in glacial layers etc.. could anyone who knows more explain what types of evidence back up these long term speculations? And if not, why we should draw any major conclusions from 5 data points over 50 years, when we don't know the variance of the system over hundreds or thousands of years, which 'seems' to be a 'normal' timescale for change?
I'm not saying this isn't a big deal, but the information in the article is woefully incomplete.
Global warming is a bit of a misleading name. Yes, the average temperature of the planet will go up, but that does not mean all places on the planet will increase in temperature. Before this, many scientists speculated that global warming would result in far colder, harsher winters for the United Kingdom.
The one thing about global warming that people must understand is that it will throw all the climate regions into chaos, and change them, which will change the local fauna and flora.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
http://www.wunderground.com/education/abruptclimat e.asp
Here is the part I wanted to reference: "Since the Great Ocean Conveyor belt is driven in part by differences in ocean water density, if one can pump enough fresh water into the ocean in the key areas on either side of Greenland where the Gulf Stream waters cool and sink, this will lower the ocean's salinity (and therefore its density) enough so that the waters there no longer sink. The Atlantic conveyor belt and Gulf Stream current will then shut down in just a few years, dramatically altering the climate. "
Also here is a write up specifically dealing with the "science" of "The Day After Tomorrow."
http://www.wunderground.com/education/thedayafter. asp
"I'm in it to win it, and no limit is my home." - Snoop Dog c/o PvP Online (July 12th, 2006)
If the current is pulling all that energy from the warm waters up north and dissipating it in the process, what will happen to all the excess warmth if the current stops? Will it find another way to go? Maybe create a new current or even restart the same current again? That heat has to go somewhere, it is water after all.
Well the current that pushes northward occurs due to the conveyor effect that occurs when the water reaches up north, cools, sinks, and flows back as cold water much deeper. In general the current just circles around the equatorial Atlantic, and only a portion branches north due to said conveyor. If the conveyor effect stalls the most likely outcome is simply more and warmer water circulating in the equatorial Atlantic. That, of course, is going to have significant impacts on climate in Africa and central and South America. Potentially a lot of the energy may end up providing more power for hurricanes out in the Atlantic. What exactly will happen is unclear, but I think its safe to say that assuming everything will magically right itself is betting on the long shot - there's really no evidence for such a thing. The most likely outcome is simply a lot warmer and more energetic weather for Africa and South and Central America.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
There's a pretty good article on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_war ming
Everyone but you is telepathic.
Not that Kyoto would do jack anyway.U p.htm
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Kyoto_Count_
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
True, ocean currents will still move. They're definitely chaotic system and often behave "counterintuitively".
b s/341318a0.html
But all that warm water goes so far north largely because of (cold) water with high salinity. This water is dense and sinks. This is called North Atlantic Deep Water formation, and possibly drives deep ocean currents around the world.
This salinity gradient is the key energy source that "pulls" warm water so far north, more than the thermal or momentum gradients.
This gradient broke down during "the Younger Dryas cold episode, which chilled the North Atlantic region from 11,000 to 10,000 yr BP." "[This] is postulated to be a turnoff [...] of the North Atlantic's conveyor-belt circulation system which currently supplies an enormous amount of heat to the atmosphere over the North Atlantic region. This turnoff is attributed to a reduction in surface-water salinity, and hence also in density, of the waters in the region where North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) now forms." Paleoclimate claims are supported by oxygen and carbon isotope studies on plankton.
see http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v341/n6240/a
Wow, people really have no clue how this world of our's works. The majority of people on this planet live in low lying areas (New York, LA, Boston, DC, almost all of Florida, just for US examples). Global warming calls for the average world wide temperature to increase. Global warming calls for an increase in the extremes (like more hurricanes). These models allow for ice ages in the northern landmasses and desertification of the equator. This current slowing has been postulated as a result of polar melt and increased northern landmass runoff. This is a density current and increased fresh water in the northern atlantic gyre can shift this current southward. The effects of global warming are not linear but geometric in expasion. Climate change on geologic time scales is just fine, climate changes on human time scales are MELEs (Mass Extinction Level Events). We have 6 well documented mass extintion events in all of geologic record and we are living in one. This planet will be fine, but human life on it will soon (geologically) be unsustainable at current levels. Go read some peer reviewed work like Paul Hoffman's Snowball Earth or Paleoclimatology by Tom Crowley. When the best scientific minds say that we are in grave danger and their models have a strong correlation to the actual data, then people should stop spouting what might be good for established big business, and try to stop fucking the planet over.
On a side note, go see a warm water reef system, and take your kids. Coral lives in 3 degrees C temperature range, that means, your grandkids will grow up in world where every reef on the planet died sometime before 2015.
My two cents,
Colin Langford
Boston College, Geology & Geophysics
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1997/vo13no25/vo 13no25_alarmism.htm
Perhaps, should we enter a new ice age, the northern countries will want to reconsider this idea...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
As usual there is a better discussion on realclimate.org.
As I understand it the situation is that the mechanism proposed for sudden climate change by Broecker some 15 years ago (and exaggerated beyond recognition in a silly movie lately) shows some signs of actually occuring. New measurement expeditions have reinforced the evidence in this direction. Though the evidence isn't absolutely conclusive, it's starting to weigh in that direction and the new evidence makes the case stronger. There is well-understood physics at work, but it involves delicate small-scale structures that are hard to capture in global scale models.
Though most scientific opinion expects it won't be enough to trigger a European ice age (unlike the YD event some 11KA ago) it could lead to a great deal more climate variability in our lifetimes especially in Europe and the northern reaches of the Atlantic than has been captured in most climate models, and in the extreme it may even cool Europe a bit as the rest of us get hotter.
mt
A couple years ago I heard this guy on the radio saying that based on archaeological evidence the earth has a natural cycle that regularly puts the earth into a mini ice age every several hundred years. For example, a history teacher I once had said that in the 1500's when the spanish were exploring up the coast of california they noticed the costal mountains had snow on them, thus calling them Sierra Nevada. Well, anyone from california will tell you that snow does not occur on the costal mountains. Other historical documents tell about crop failure and famine in northern europe during some of the years of the mini-ice age. So this is really nothing new, it's just new to us because now we have the technological equipment to monitor such changes.
Some people say that the real "global warming" problem has to do with increased energy output from the sun. Good luck stoping that one.
Magnetic Poles May Be About To Flip
Earth's Magnetic Field Weakens 10 Percent
The New York Times On Earth's Magnetic Flip-Flop
Since there's nothing I can do to prevent the change that's coming, I'm getting ready for it. The ride gets bumpier from here on out, until about 2011 or 2012, which is the end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar. As I understand it, their calendar cycles back to zero on December 21, 2012. (The universe has an "overflow bug" too!
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Regardless of the rest of your argument, it is definitely the case that global warming is expected to warm the polar and subpolar regions more than the tropics, decreasing the temperature gradient, and it is also definitely the case that the greatest effects so far have been in high latitude continental interiors, specifically the interiors of Canada, Alaska and Siberia. Now it is starting to show up in the high Arctic and the edges of the great ice caps.
There are two phenomena at work, one subtle one which I've never figured out about radiative equilibrium and the vertical profile of temperature in cold vs warm places, and one very simple one; the ice-albedo feedback. The latter one says that as ice and snow cover retreats, the ground gets darker for more of the year, reflecting less sunlight and absorbing more. That causes warming or cooling trends to be enhanced at ice and snow boundaries.
mt
Considering how many coral reefs will die from temperature changes, or the dependencies of co-evolved species especially plants and migratory insects, and other such things, I would contend that we know more than enough to conclude it will be much worse for the biosphere.
3. Ocean levels might rise a bit, but this might be offset by increased ocean ice due to the mini ice age, so the whole "waterworld" thing is going to be a non-starter. Of course we knew that.
Time for a review of archimedes principle. Ocean levels are expected to rise during warming because the antarctic ice cap and many glaciers (i.e. non-floating ice) will melt into the oceans. However ocean ice floats, i.e. displaces its own weight in water, and so its presence has no effect on water levels.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
The one sided vote is not that surprising given how much of a whore the govt is for the corporations. Not one person in the senate cares more about the health of the ecosystem or the world their grandchildren will inherit then where they get campaign funds from.
evil is as evil does
By Steve Connor, Science Editor The Independent, 10 February 2003 Generations of schoolchildren have been raised on the belief that the mild British winters and cool summers are due to the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current flowing from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of western Europe. Without the Gulf Stream, our teachers told us, Britain's winters would be as cold and ice-bound as a frozen port in Newfoundland and its summers as hot and stuffy as a Moscow August. But the textbooks have got it wrong, according to scientists who have just finished a study of what makes Western Europe cool in summer and mild in winter. The scientists found that Britain's moderate climate is due not to the Gulf Stream, but to the Rocky Mountains in the western US 4,000 miles away. Using weather data gathered over the past 50 years and powerful computer models to describe how heat is shunted around the globe, they discovered that the contribution of the Gulf Stream was negligible compared with the influence of warm southerly winds originating in the Rockies. These winds, they said, played a big role in explaining why winters in Britain could be anything up to 15C or 20C warmer than the same latitude in eastern North America. "Belief in the benign role of the Gulf Stream is so widespread that is has become folklore," said Richard Seager, the scientist who led the study from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York. The belief that the Gulf Stream is responsible for Britain's mild, maritime climate appears to have originated with the publication in 1856 of a book by Maurice Fontaine Maury, a lieutenant in the American Navy. "One of the benign offices of the Gulf Stream is to convey heat from the Gulf of Mexico, where otherwise it would become excessive, and to disperse it in regions beyond the Atlantic for the amelioration of the climates of the British Isles and of all Western Europe," Maury wrote. "This idea is one reason why so much climate research has been focused on the impact of changes in the circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean," Dr Seager said. Several recent studies, for instance, have suggested that global warming might slow down or even stop the Gulf Stream which carries energy equivalent to 27,000 times the total output of all of Britain's power stations so bringing a far more variable continental climate to Western Europe. Dr Seager's study, published in the current issue of the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, suggests that the Gulf Stream accounts for no more than 10 per cent of the winter temperature differences between Britain and Newfoundland, Canada. The scientists found that the real reason for Britain's mild weather was twofold. First, there is a genuine maritime effect of being surrounded by a relatively warm body of water, but this has nothing to do with the Gulf Stream. Second, this maritime influence is bolstered by southwesterly winds bringing a warm air mass from the south. These winds would not blow if the Rockies did not exist, the researchers found. Even without the Gulf Stream, Britain would be bathed in prevailing westerly winds that bring in the warmth stored in the Atlantic Ocean. Water retains summer heat far longer than land, which is why the winter-summer difference in temperature is about 5ÂC over the North Atlantic and yet nearer 50ÂC at the same latitude in Siberia. Dr Seager said his study showed that this phenomenon which was independent of the Gulf Stream accounted for about half of the winter temperature difference between Britain and Newfoundland. The other half, he said, was due to the prevailing winds over the maritime regions of Western Europe--not westerlies, but from the southwest. Those south-westerlies brought additional heat to Western Europe. Their origins could be traced to a massive "meander" in the north-south wind patterns over North America, which was generated by the presence of the Rockies. "One such meander occurs east of the Rocky Mountains and brings cold air into eastern N
How was it "designed to economically punish the USA"? By requiring USA to cut down emissions? Guess what Einstein? It required EU (among others) to cut their emissions as well! In fact, the requirements were higher for EU than for USA! And there's few things to consider:
a) In Europe, power is generated relatively cleanly (nuclear etc.). Not so in USA
b) Cars in Europe are relatively environmentally-friendly, when compared to cars in USA
c) Industry in Europe (steel among others) had already spent lots of money modernizing their plants, making the more environmentally friendly.
d) People actually use mass-transportation in Europe, not so in USA.
What does all that mean? It means that USA could easily reach the requirements of the treaty by doing the stuff EU already did. EU could not, they would have to find other ways to cut their emissions, since all the easy things have already been done (not so in the USA).
Even simpler: EU worked hard to cut down emissions. Then they were told to cut their emissions by 9% (IIRC) more. USA did jack-shit to cut down their emissions, and then they were told to cut their emissions by 8% (again, IIRC). So it would be relatively easy for USA to cut their emissions, while it would be considerably harder for EU.
"Punishing the USA" my ass!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
The laws intent was to help rural people, as in farmers. However as with a horrid system of taxes that the US suffers from a loophole was found. The law did not originally specify what "types" of vehicles qualified for the discount. It merely stated over 6,000 pounds. This normally would have been the domain of vehicles used mostly on farms and some small businesses.
It is the tax system which is at fault for most disparities. It allows the rich to dodge payment as they can buy loopholes from Congress. It is their lawyers and lobbyist who work to keep the system in place. By making sure to keep a near majority of people from paying income taxes, and worse actually paying the least capable of those, they have created a system which actually allows them keep more of their wealth. They prey on the middle class and the poor by misdirection and deceit.
All these tax dodges have to get paid for. The usual means is to pass it off to business. why? Because it is easier to portray businesses as evil and uncaring. Trouble is no business actually pays any tax, they are merely collectors for taxes. That is why people don't notice it. When the price of their favorite items goes up they blame the business, ignoring the effects of tax laws and abuse of them and how the resposibility for paying those taxes got mysteriously moved.
Blame Bush is the cheap way out and exactly what these boys want you to do. Blame anyone but the right people and they continue their game unharrassed. Convince people who already distrust whomever is in power to blame those in power is the easiest part of the game.
Fortunately once the abuses were figured out they did get shut down, the new side effect of the internet and such was that people who would not know of the ability to abuse the law suddenly had an abundance of information provided on how to do just that.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
77-23 in Senate and 296-133 in House is as one-sided as 100-0 or 99-1?? That's a clear majority, but not quite "one-sided."
Actually, for every molecule of CO2 added to the system,
you are subtracting one molecule of O2 to the system.
So, humans are running out of oxygen far faster than they need to worry about freezing to death.
The Global drop in available oxygen is under reported, most likely to prevent widespread panic.
The Oceans Primary Oxygen Producting Plankton levels have been dropping radically since the 1980s (they make more than 50% of the oxygen you need) and the green space of trees and plants continually gets reduced by urbanization, suburban sprawl, slash and burn, and ongoing desertification in Africa and elsewhere (They make the rest of your O2).
Reseachers have linked the real cause of mass extinction events not to just some rock falling from the sky, but for the worldwide drop of oxygen from 35 percent down to 15 percent of the atmosphere. The Giant Dinos ran out of air.
With the ongoing death of land plants and primary oxygen producing plankton, VERY few humans will survive the upcoming drop from the current 21 percent oxygen levels down to only 9 percent oxygen levels.
Here are some sources of the biggest coverup in human history: 'The Oxygen is vanishing.':
LONG-TERM ATMOSPHERIC OXYGEN DECREASE
- AN UNDERESTIMATED FACTOR FORCING THE PERMIAN-TRIASSIC MASS EXTINCTION.
O. Weidlich (1), W. Kiessling (2) and E. Flügel (3)
(1) Inst. f. Geowissenschaften, Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel,
(2) Inst. f. Paläontologie, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin,
(3) Inst. f. Paläontologie, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg (ow@gpi.uni-kiel.de/Fax: +49-431880-5557)
direct link: http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EAE03/05406/EAE03-J -05406.pdf
Referenced and Link Located on:
List of Accepted Contributions -
CL32 Phanerozoic history of atmospheric gases (co-sponsored by BG)
EGS-AGU-EUG Joint Assembly. Nice, France, 06 - 11 April 2003
Copernicus Online Service + Information System
http://www.cosis.net/members/meetings/sessions/acc epted_contributions.php?p_id=38&s_id=779
Vulnerability Assessment of the North East Atlantic Shelf Marine Ecoregion to Climate Change
West Coast Energy Limited. Trevor Baker, Project Manager August 2005
World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
Monitoring the Earth from Space with SeaWiFS
http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/TEACHERS/s anctuary_7.html
Decline in Oceans' Phytoplankton Alarms Scientists
David Perlman - SF Chronicle 6oct03
http://www.mindfully.org/Water/2003/Phytoplankton- Decline-Ocean6oct03.htm
Ocean primary production and climate: Global decadal changes
Watson W. Gregg, Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, USA
In the meantime, China seems to be the only large country that's actually working on decreasing CO2 output.
There are some grass roots changes happening elsewhere that are very hard to measure, let alone assess the results. Although the USA federal government rejected Kyoto, several states have adopted Kyoto goals for environmental policies (example: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware have created the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative). Some USA municipalities have made significant changes in their infrastructure to comply with the Kyoto Protocol (example: Portland Oregon has met the first Kyoto goal of rolling back CO2 releases to pre-1990 levels. Other USA cities are beginning to recognize that encouraging their residents to adopt better habits wrt recycling, transportation, and so on not only generates lots of warm, fuzzy feelings but improves the local economy.
The Kyoto Protocol has been having a significant effect on public policy even within nations that didn't sign it. I'm personally pessimistic about whether any of this will avert the coming catastrophe (somehow the 6 billion people on earth today has to be reduced to the 2 billion that seems to be the earth's sustainable carrying capacity-- call me Malthus). But on the positive side, those who survive the next 50 years are likely to have habits wrt to reduce-reuse-recycle and mass transit that will be as significant in their new world as sanitation facilities are in today's cities.
You are right that the direct energy of combustion would have only minimal effects (though we have used enough energy to seperate the fresh from the bracking water, if we were able to concentrate all the energy across time and space of human history into the North Atlantic in a single moment). All known oil reserves only add up to about 1 day's worth of sunlight.
However, greenhouse gases work by trapping natural heat, not through the energy of combustion. They work much like a catalyst, not getting used up in the process. Much like a blanket or a greenhouse is not consumed in keeping things warm, greenhouse gases do not get consumed in the process of warming Earth. The gas equivalent of a millimetre-thick dry-ice blanket around the Earth is about all it takes to cause substantial global warming. If you do the math, you'll find that the amount of CO2 we've spewed is several times larger than enough to account for the warming observed, and in fact, scientists are curious as to why there hasn't been more warming that has been observed. (current theories are that the ocean is acting as a buffer, both for CO2 and as a thermal buffer).