Super Pathway Discovered In Southern Ocean

WaltonNews writes in to let us know that a major underwater current called the Tasman Outflow has been discovered by Australian scientists. It helps to regulate the Earth's climate by providing water flow between three oceans in the southern hemisphere. Relatedly, a senior climate scientist has called for the establishment of a Southern Hemisphere network of deep ocean moorings, to complement the network already established in the North Atlantic. The intent is to detect any change in ocean circulation that may adversely influence global climate.

Comments

Dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

More radical than the EAC!

I call bullshit!

[stratjakt]

Al Gore already figured ALL OF THIS OUT.

There are no natural processes which affect climate. We all know what affects climate, is our use of incandescent light bulbs!

If only we'd all switch to mercury filled compact flouros, we'd reduce this nations energy consumption by almost 0.005%! Not only that, we'd increase the amount of mercury in our groundwater by over 200%! Mercury is good for you and helps build strong bones and teeth.

Also, we should junk our existing cars and build and purchase new ones which are marginally more efficient.

WHEN WILL WE LEARN?! THE ONLY SOLUTION TO CLIMATE PROBLEMS IS TO SPEND SPEND SPEND SPEND ON COMPANIES AL GORE HAS STOCK IN.

Re:I call bullshit!

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually laughed out loud reading that. Especially the mercury bit. What's almost as funny is that you will now be modded down for making a joke at Global Warming's expense. That's right, Global Warming is capitalized...that's what you do with religion, right?

Mod me down baby, waste away those mod points...

Re:I call bullshit!

[OrangeTide]

I want to be that guy's friend now.

seems like you're better off keeping a moderately efficient car for as long as you can (maybe 10 years?) instead of dumping it before its time is up to get a hybrid. not just environmentally but financially. not having to make $300/mo payments seems like you could afford a little extra gasoline.

CFL are great, but without a wide spread recycling program it is just going to cause poison to be released into the environment. Causing severe problems to sensitive species, including ourselves. If Al Gore is so smart why did he not propose a federal mandatory disposal/recycling program for CFLs and hybrid's lead batteries?

Re:I call bullshit!

[More Trouble]

seems like you're better off keeping a moderately efficient car for as long as you can (maybe 10 years?) instead of dumping it before its time is up to get a hybrid. not just environmentally but financially. not having to make $300/mo payments seems like you could afford a little extra gasoline. If all you're concerned about is your personal welfare, then I'd have to say ... it depends. Only an idiot would "dump" a working automobile. Clearly, you'd sell it, thus recouping some fraction of its value. And then you'd pay cash for the hybrid, you're unlikely to get a new car loan on a hybrid for less than 7%. I find that the best way to decide is to calculate the cost (to you) per mile. Depending on what you're driving today, how far you're driving, how fast you're driving, etc., a hybrid may or may not be a cost improvement. Ignoring fancy calculations like "carbon footprint". If you're interested in that sort of thing, I'd suggest becoming a vegetarian -- at least as effective and better for you. Also, buying food (and other stuff) that wasn't shipped thousands of miles helps.

Re:I call bullshit!

[budgenator]

I'm a global warming skeptic, and I work in the dental industry, you know mercury based amalgam filings, and I'm going to tell you I'd rather have a few mg of Hg in the land fill than the amount of mercury and thorium going up the power-plant stack that the bulb would prevent.

Re:I call bullshit!

[OrangeTide]

I'd rather not burn coal and release mercury and radioactive particles into the environment, and use CFLs (and dispose of them properly) so we can use hydro, solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear power more effectively.

I want to have my cake and eat it too.

Re:I call bullshit!

[More Trouble]

What about the "I'm an idiot who bought a car with a nickel metal-hydride battery which when refined produces shitloads of sulfer dioxide. But that's okay since carbon isn't present which makes everything fucking hunky-dory." crowd? You must be referring to the (totally spurious) article comparing the Prius with the Hummer, where the Hummer comes out as more environmentally friendly. Perhaps some further research is warranted?

IT'S SETTLED SCIENCE

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously anyone talking about any so-called "ocean currents" affecting the Earth's climate is in the pocket of Chimpy McBushitler and his cronies in Big Oil. We all know that only SUVs, incandescent light bulbs, and not listening to Al Gore cause changes in climate.

Holy shit, it's hot out today! WE'RE DOOMED!!!!

Re:IT'S SETTLED SCIENCE

[DragonWriter]

Obviously anyone talking about any so-called "ocean currents" affecting the Earth's climate is in the pocket of Chimpy McBushitler and his cronies in Big Oil. We all know that only SUVs, incandescent light bulbs, and not listening to Al Gore cause changes in climate.

You know, lots of people are posting variations on this as if it were some kind of clever skewering of the Al Gore and others advocating policy change to address global warming, but all it really does is demonstrate that the people posting this and variations on it aren't paying attention; Al Gore and others taking similar positions point to climate engines like this (though not this particular one in the past, since it wasn't known, but the North Atlantic Current has always been pointed to) as areas of sensitivity because human-produced effects can change the conditions which make these systems operate the way they do, thus causing them to change how they operate, thus producing greater climate change than the human actions do more directly.

The whole idea that there is some kind of binary dichotomy between human activity and natural processes influencing the environment, and that anyone pointing to the former is stating that the latter is not a factor is just bizarre. Its sort of like arguing, of a typical interactive software program, that the output must be produced by either the input or the executable code, but not the two working together.

Re:IT'S SETTLED SCIENCE

[tdent1138]

"Al Gore and others taking similar positions point to climate engines like this (though not this particular one in the past, since it wasn't known, but the North Atlantic Current has always been pointed to) as areas of sensitivity because human-produced effects can change the conditions which make these systems operate the way they do, thus causing them to change how they operate, thus producing greater climate change than the human actions do more directly."

Be that as it may, it seems to me that we keep discovering parts of the 'system' we never even knew existed. I cannot understand how we are supposed to take seriously those who advocate destroying our (US) economy (ie Kyoto) when no one can begin to model the climate with any accuracy at all. 1998 was the hottest year? Oops! Not really. The average temperature has gone up? Hmmm... Since when? The last mini ice-age? Imagine that. Where exactly are all those temperature sensors and have they never been moved since pre-1900? Certainly there are 'heat islands' created by cities. Is that all factored in? And of course, even if we take those temperatures at face value, those are just the temps on land where we have sensors. What happened to the temperature where we don't have senors like over the oceans (the other 75% of our planet)? Did it go up there too? We don't know how this "brand new" current effects another current over there or how the sun effects the cloud cover or precipitation or or or... As far as I can tell, these "global warming" scientist guys think they know it all and that is the surest sign they know nothing.

Re:IT'S SETTLED SCIENCE

[rgravina]

I don't know whether this is a troll or not, but this attitute really annoys me. While it is true that global warming proponents first reaction often is to link any unusual climate phenomenon with global warming, it makes little sense to pretend there isn't a problem either.

It's all too easy to just ignore the possibility that we might be screwing up the planet so we can happily go on and do whatever the hell we want.

Sure, it being a hot day today might have absolutelty nothing to do with what we have done to the planet over the last 100 years in particular, or it might. I'm not that cluely with the natural sciences, but it makes sense that curning out CO2 which was previously locked away in fossil fuels would increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and that in turn could have other effects, like warming up the planet.

Wny can't we just think rationally about issues like this instead of spewing out crap like the parent post?

Bad bad reporting

[Yath]

None of the quotes in the article support the reporter's opinion that the intent is to detect adverse effects. It's almost like the reporter is trying to stir things up... troll, if you will, by making it look like the scientists are out to confirm some already-held conclusions that the climate is getting worse.

Energy source

[QuickFox]

We should tap these ocean currents for energy. We should have machines somewhat similar to wind turbines, anchored to the sea floor, floating in the middle of the flow.

These flows are far more steady and reliable than the wind. And no pollution. A great source of energy.

Re:Energy source

[evil agent]

They're trying to do this in the East River in New York. Unsuccessfully so far...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/nyregion/13power .html

Re:Energy source

[Twanfox]

Isn't that what they said about global warming, that we're basically so insignificant to the size of the planet that nothing we could possibly do would harm the environment (hint: look at measurements for human-caused CO2 emissions into the air)? And wait, didn't we just read about (at least on a lower scale) China happily forcing the white dolphin to extinction because of their insignificant push on the environment (yay, toxic dumping!)?

Don't for a second dismiss out of hand the effect we might have on the environment simply because "it's so big compared to what WE could do." That's how we've gotten in trouble already, and you want to be so stupid as to continue down that path? If you want to ensure your untimely demise, by all means, get a gun and pop one into your cranium. However, until we know for certain what the ramifications of such a system would be, we should consider it potentially dangerous.

Frankly, it scares me to death when people start talking about tapping into the few things like ocean currents that keep the heat circulating from hot places to cold places. Shut those down and the hot places are going to get incredibly hot and the cold places are going to be terribly frigid. Some all-fired nasty storms happen when you have colliding air masses with huge variations in temperature.

Re:Tasmanian Outflow vs. North Atlantic Current

[Rob T Firefly]

So does this deprecate the "The Day After Tomorrow"? Too late. That film did a pretty thorough job of deprecating itself.

That is pretty normal

[WindBourne]

Nearly all of the major news reporters are simply trying to make big headlines (save for several which have their own agenda's). All will spin in to suite their purpose. A good example was back in the 70's, a scientist say that climate change WAS happening and suggested that it COULD lead to global cooling. From that, a number of the articles came out that pushed that. So, quite paying attention there.

Pay attention to what the real scientist are saying directly. Get past what fox news and oil companies have to say. Listen to the top ones (such as Dr. Hansen who is one of thousands ) and even ones like Dr Grey ( from Colo State, who is one of the very few accredited skeptics). It is a good thing to pay attention to both sides, just skip the garbage.

Re:Adverse changes?

[Elemenope]

Hey guys, it is mid-August in what was supposed to be a record hurricane season. No storms yet.

Apparently you do not live in Texas, where Hurricane Dean (the fourth named storm of the season) is about to hit. But hey, don't let facts get in the way of a good story.

Ted Stevens had this comment...

[Jason Levine]

It's an underwater series of tubes!

Sequel time

[ghoul]

Hey now we can have the Day after Tomorrow 2 or as I like to call it 2 days after tomorrow. This time the problem starts in the south and we can have nice special effects of a kangaroo freezing to death. Hell we could throw in some junk science to explain why Australian animals are so different (something to do with a previous freeze) The big thing is we could use all the Australian actors - Mel Gibson Tom Cruise Nicole Kidman as the main characters and ask them to their native Australian accent for a change.

You don't get it.

[spun]

Global climate change can affect ocean currents, which in turn affect global climate change. Your strident ranting adds nothing to the debate except anger and misunderstanding. What is your motivation?

Re:Adverse changes?

[E 99]

The intent is to detect any change in ocean circulation that may adversely influence global climate.

How would they discriminate between adverse and beneficial changes?

Haven't you heard? All change is adverse. Change that hurts humans is bad because it hurts the oppressed, and change that helps humans is bad because it helps the oppressors. Welcome to the 21st century, it's stranger than fiction.

But that would change the climate

[yintercept]

desalinzation on a massive scale, we could pump billions of gallons of water inland into the continents of Africa and Asia.

The efforts you suggest would change the climate. The climate change debate says that we need to stop change. It does not say that we need to work on technologies to make our lives better. If a place was covered with a glacier in 1976, then it needs to be covered with a glacier in 2076. If a place was covered with a barren desert in 1976, it needs to be covered with a desert in 2176.

Everything needs to stay the same. And it will stay the same, if we just moved real slow.

Re:But we *know* man causes global warming, right?

[CorSci81]

We knew deep ocean currents existed, the article really just points out that we have firmer evidence of there being a common flow between all of the southern oceans. The existence of the deep Atlantic currents we knew about was pretty good evidence this one likely existed, we just hadn't found it.

As far as climate goes, the deep return currents (much like this one) are very slow. Much slower than say the Gulf Stream in the north Atlantic. The time scale for these large flows to change is in the hundreds to thousands of years, and have very little bearing on current global warming. The article summary (and you) is really just stirring up needless controversy because if you mention anything to do with climate someone has to bring up global warming. For all practical purposes you could treat the deep currents as constant sources/sinks at the few places they interact with the surface and your climate model would work just as well. From what I recall most of them do just that for short-term (a few decades) timescales.

mod styles

[zahl2]

I boggle as to how they were modded up as "interesting" and not "funny".

If it were me, I'd be torn between modding down as "troll" and up as "funny". But then I have a sick sense of humor.

Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't the sea turtles in Finding Nemo already figure this out?

Three words ...

[Ex-MislTech]

Global Warming Swindle ....search for it on google video, watch it,
learn a lot from "former" members of the IPCC.

I hope that was meant to be a parody

[benhocking]

Skeptics know that NASA just had to revise the warmest year on record to 1934 instead of 1998 because their software had a Y2K bug.

Scientists (i.e., real skeptics) know that NASA just had to revise the warmest year in the US on record to 1934 instead of 1998 because of a software bug that had nothing to do with Y2K errors, although it did occur in 2000. Scientists also know that 1934 was already a very close second (in the US), and happened during the US dust bowl. Scientists know the difference between local climate and global climate.

Skeptics know that climate models don't account for solar variation, especially sunspot activity which affects precipitation.

Scientists know that climate models do account for solar variation, and that despite having just come out of a sunspot minimum, we were still setting temperature records.

Skeptics know that the rate of global warming is falling.

Scientists know that "skeptics" were claiming that 10 years ago, too. Interesting thing is that 9 of the hottest 10 years on record for the Earth (even after the NASA correction) happened in the last decade.

Skeptics know that that the economic costs of reducing CO2 emissions far outweigh the benefits.

Scientists know that the reverse is true.

Skeptics know that global warming alarmists are funded to the tune of 1000x the skeptics.

Scientists know that the alarmists are hardly funded at all, but that most climatologists are funded to do their research regardless of its outcome, whereas some researchers are paid by "think tanks" only if they get the "right research" (cf. the recent "bounty" announced by AEI).

Don't attack people when you really have no clue. Almost half the climatologists are skeptics and the other half gets big research grants because they aren't.

You had me until that last line. Now I know you're just being funny. Go to a climatology journal and see how many "skeptics" you can find. (By "skeptic", I assume you mean someone who thinks that AGW isn't real.)