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Ocean Current That Keeps Europe Warm Is Weakening Because of Climate Change (washingtonpost.com)
The Washington Post: The Atlantic Ocean circulation that carries warmth into the Northern Hemisphere's high latitudes is slowing down because of climate change, a team of scientists asserted Wednesday, suggesting one of the most feared consequences is already coming to pass (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source). The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has declined in strength by 15 percent since the mid-20th century to a "new record low," the scientists conclude in a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature. That's a decrease of 3 million cubic meters of water per second, the equivalent of nearly 15 Amazon rivers.
The AMOC brings warm water from the equator up toward the Atlantic's northern reaches and cold water back down through the deep ocean. The current is partly why Western Europe enjoys temperate weather, and meteorologists are linking changes in North Atlantic Ocean temperatures to recent summer heat waves. The circulation is also critical for fisheries off the U.S. Atlantic coast, a key part of New England's economy that have seen changes in recent years, with the cod fishery collapsing as lobster populations have boomed off the Maine coast.
The AMOC brings warm water from the equator up toward the Atlantic's northern reaches and cold water back down through the deep ocean. The current is partly why Western Europe enjoys temperate weather, and meteorologists are linking changes in North Atlantic Ocean temperatures to recent summer heat waves. The circulation is also critical for fisheries off the U.S. Atlantic coast, a key part of New England's economy that have seen changes in recent years, with the cod fishery collapsing as lobster populations have boomed off the Maine coast.
That's one of them-there feedback mechanisms that cools the poles in the event they get too hot. I recall hearing about it twenty years ago, in the context of "No, the world won't end because of global warming, the planet has feedback mechanisms to dump excess heat. That's how it's still nice and comfy here after billions of years."
Please measure in libraries of congress. Tx
Be Excellent To Each Other
Don't get me wrong, I personally think that ACC is real, and a problem. But––
The story I heard on NPR [1] today said:
...scientists disagree about what's behind the sluggish ocean current...
but did go on to say:
The only thing we really can do is obviously try and prevent global warming because that's the root cause of why we think it's weakening now...
[1] https://www.npr.org/2018/04/13...
/. already solved this in February.
I was just a little ahead of my time. But the business plan was sound.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
and I'm getting about a foot of global warming deposited onto my driveway. Yup, this science is definitely settled.
Well, as long as it's only a foot of global warming then there's nothing to worry your little head about.
But if you were getting a foot of climate change that's a whole other thing. We all (well those of us with more than about two neurons to rub together and who have been paying attention) know that climate change means more extreme swings in intensity. What once would have been some late season flurries can now be <gasp> a foot of snow with an increase in intensity.
So yeah, IMO, your foot of snow in mid-April definitely fits the Climate Change science.
And do let us know what your particular qualifications are. I'm sure your AA from Hicks and Rubes in Flyover State Community College puts you in a unique position to play armchair meteorologist with the big boys and girls who have PhDs and publish peer reviewed research.
Because, you know, it's Science, bitches.
(Yeah, go ahead, mod me down; and prove I'm right.
Versus who's paying you to be a troll here. Should I call you Ivan? Or Sasha? Or Dmitri?
There's not going to be global cooling. In 6 years, Galactic Overlord Zenu is going to come back and rapture up all the level 7 or higher Scientologists and then blow up the planet.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
There is still some good conversation here on technical subjects, but on climage change it's a bunch of people who know very little about the subject being jerks.
There is no "cooling trend". The current as it is today provides anomalously warm temperatures to northwestern Europe. If this current is fully disrupted, the UK and friends will end up having the same general climate as northern Canada. Along with northen Canada, it then will slowly warm in accordance with the generally accepted global rates.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
This is Slashdot!
Here, global warming is a conspiracy thought up by an alliance of greedy scientists and secret globalists in their war against the honest, hard-working executives of the petrochemical and other carbon industries.
Ocean Warming & Acidification - Dr. Alex Cannara
Gradually rising temperatures and seas are but a mere inconvenience next to the impending mass extinctions in the oceans and disruption of ocean currents. It is happening now, and there are already large dead zones that are now incapable of supporting life. To prevent global catastrophe will require enormous amounts of clean energy, not the symbolic non-solutions that are in vogue today.
lol!
You do realize that the poster you quoted there is a Global Warming denier, right?
you need help
Paris accord will solve all the issues with Climate Change. I am sure that if we do not focus on stopping growth in emissions, and instead all focus on per capita emissions while allowing CHina, India, Brazil, South Africa, etc to grow, that it will solve all of these issues.
I mean what could possible go wrong with stopping 1 small group of ppl while allowing others to grow far bigger in their emissions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you have a DC power supply and you increase the voltage at some gradual rate, what happens is you introduce high frequency "ringing" into the signal. In fact, there will be points in time where not only is the voltage decreasing, but it will actually drop below the original value. You can confirm this easily by connecting an oscilloscope and capturing the signal. Will you then begin to doubt that you ever turned the voltage up at all?
This property is common to all non-linear dynamical systems, that is to say, everything in the Universe. In every field of physics, you see the same pattern.
The science is settled.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
. Yup, this science is definitely settled.
I'm sorry: the science is NEVER settled. If it is, it's dogma. You might as well stay with religion, because random($Holy_Book) is singularly, literally correct and everything else is absolutely wrong, and they'll TELL you that upfront. If you fight it, then either somehow you've misunderstood the words and need a re-education OR the $Evil_Deity has you under control. (The Earth, Gods Creation, is still the Center of the Universe, right? RIGHT?? If not, back in you go and we'll try it again later.)
All science can do is tell you what's WRONG, hopefully in a way so that you can find something next time that's NOT-QUITE-SO-wrong. Then: "Iterate." See: Iterate.
Seriously -- I applaud the flat-Earth nutcase (I think he's one too) that launched himself in a rocket the other month. But he thinks something, and he's out actively trying to prove it. I don't understand why lunar eclipses don't help -- I think it's because they believe the Earth has to be sitting on something: the "Down" thing. They "get" gravity as down, but can't figure out that for something floating in space, down is always near the center. (But way down there isn't down, it's UP.) But he's at least trying. I don't see why he can't fly an unmanned rocket with a GoCam on it and collect it himself, or radio down the pics. What, are the Illuminati going to intercept and change the SD Card / Radio Signals / have Elvis's UFO fly by it and hang pictures in front of the camera to deceive him? He wants to see it with his own eyes, except how does that change the UFO picture problem? (Unless of course he finds an edge. THEN it's a different story.)
HE'S taking action. When's the last time you (or *I*) did something like that? Here's a weird thing you could try. (Or just finish watching the video.) But the the MiB could be sponsoring the video -- that's why science wants everything out in the open and repeatable.
And that's why Sci and Rel don't mix -- Miracles are by definition NOT repeatable but science wants them to be, to find the edges and exceptions. And that's just fine, pick you poison. I'm an atheist but believe they're independent -- you can believe both at the same time. But some people want you to pick one EXCLUSIVELY over the other.
I'm a bad example since I've done just that -- except I'm actually an agnostic, and I really just don't care about the religion side. If so, then God and I will eventually be having a quick little chat. (I imagine it'll be a QUICK one before being smited: "Oh, hi there God -- well, shit." If not, then I imagine we won't, it'll be more: " " I'm anxious to find out, but not enough so to hurry along the process. BTW: Watch Youjo Senki / The Saga of Tanya the Evil
So what science experiments have YOU tried to re-validate lately? AGW? Dropping and timing light and heavy objects? Birds fly by ONLY flapping their wings? Fridge light always on or goes out? ANYTHING?
Science isn't special -- DO some. Explain things. Or explain why you CAN'T explain them. I was looking for the Feynman quote about a freshman lecture, but insead, this one fits better: 12th one down. -- "Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." It's NEVER settled, but the longer it goes the more " 'PLAININ' you got to do."
But I'm going to finish with the highest authority available, a quote from ANIME: "It's your fault for being unable to differentiate between religion and science." Trying to remember where that came from. Something about two little girls and a ?slug?, one is much more religious than the other -- hence the comment.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
The sad truth is most folks don't realize how fragile our planet is, it's a finely balanced chaotic system where a slight change in something as small as the CO2 concentration in the air is enough to cause a massive shift in climate. Nature normally takes thousands of years but we're essentially speeding it up into centuries or even decades. It's been known for years that the ocean sea currents could change with climate change and unfortunately it looks like it's coming true. If the oceans current shutdown it won't just cause Europe to get cooler. It could disrupt the monsoon rains which allow India to farm and provides water. If you have a billion people starving to death, I wouldn't want to explain to them how this wasn't my fault and I'm not sharing.
Let's sort things out "easily" (you know in science that's an euphemism for "mostly but there are also other things you don't talk about") for many people who doesn't understand how this "Climate Change" works.
0) Our Climate lies in equilibrium of freshwater-saltwater. A difference in salt concentration is what makes the ocean water currents move; just like pressures differences make air move.
1) Higher temperatures mean ice (freshwater) reserves melt faster. This implies a "shift" in equilibrium towards less salted water, implying the current doesn't have enough "salt concentration" differences and, hence, stop moving.
2) When the currents move, the water is cold (near the poles) and warm (near ecuator) and that cold/warm is taken by the moving air to landmasses. If the current stops, it means top will always be cold and bottom always warm.
3) And the final consequence of Global Warming is an Ice Age...
On (1) you can debate "why" the temperatures rises. You must take in account that the temperatures "changes" normally (maybe a solar eruption, hotspots, forest fires, etc. or, on the other hand, a ice mases sliding, more raining, etc.)
The problem is not that "they have changed" (that's what the ignorants keep talking about). The problem is that "they have changed TOO FAST", meaning, there's "other" thing apart the "normal temperature changes ratio". Here is where humans come in. Maybe it's fossil burning, plastics on ocean that reflect light, etc. whatever meaning "contamination".
The second problem is that we have passes years ago the "No Return Point", meaning, even if we stop contaminating, the Climate Shift won't stop at all. Then, why stop contaminating?
Well, there are two reasons I think, personally, on my own, YOU SHOULD BE WORRY ABOUT TOO:
A) Your descendants need a clean environment to live or will suffer (greatly). I, personally, will fight to protect my family from your (the ignorants' and criminals') crimes against Nature.
B) The most contamination, the shift will happen sooner. What's the problem then? Well, for example, if in your region you suffer 2 tornadoes each year, you'll "enjoy" 5 next year, 8 the following one, etc.
The only "hope" is that if humankind survives the Ice Age (and stops [or at list reduces considerably] contaminating), after that Ice Age, the Earth will try to recover the previous equilibrium state.
Meanwhile, millions would have died due to the Climate Shift/Change -- Global Warming, whatever you choose to call it.
Let me phrase the answer in a way you might be able to comprehend.
You mean like lobbing million dollar missiles at some Muslims on the other side of the globe?
Climate change or not, the RIGHT thing to do regardless is find better ways to meet our electrical needs. Oil/Coal can and should be mostly replaced as soon as possible.
Progress and advancement as a species. Just think about the conflicts that could be reduced if no one on the globe had to worry about energy production.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Personally, I'd rather we spent the $trillions on known, well-understood issues where we can see sizable concrete benefits that help billions of people
I suggest we spend the money on finding an alternative to fossil fuels before they run out. Dependable energy is more important than the climate.
Willfully obtuse.
Lots of people are tools of their own free will, but you could try sending Exxon an invoice for your efforts.
Then its a good thing that church has as many followers that the War on Christmas does.
Every time - I forget how alarming that xkcd is. And funny. HAHA! haha. ha.... Jeez.
Not change? On average, for virtually all of the last 250 million years.
The last century has seen more change than in any given ten million year period. I assume you've done calculus. Ok, maybe not.
Nobody is spending trillions on climate change. If they had done so, it wouldn't be a problem. It's because they're too busy spending it on known things like warships, cruise missiles, nuclear warheads and pay raises for bankers and the uber-wealthy that there's a problem.
No, I have absolutely bugger all sympathy for your argument.
Oh, and Get Off My Lawn!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If you have NO IDEA who Xenu is, please read it.
Pretty sure it was that place Kubla Khan did a bunch of stuff way back when.
Or, come to think of it, isn't it an Olive Newton John song? So Xenu must have been an old boyfriend, pretty sure that's why Xenu is referred to as "An Old One".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I no longer believe any assertion that contains the phrase "because of climate change." The planet's environment is too complex to model; any attempt to do so is doomed to failure, with one of the results being that people make all kinds of goofy predictions based on unreliable results.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
'global warming' changed to 'climate change' precisely because of idiots like you who would point to 1 place it got a little colder and denied there was even a change.
You didn't understand that global meant the global average, and not literally every little piece of the globe was getting warmer.
That's right. All of this is weather and not man made.
Cracks me up when Algore says - there is a consensus. Science isn't consensus, it's either true with reproducible research or it's not. We're still firmly in the "it's not" category because CO2 is a symptom and not the cause.
I remember Einstein and his theory. He was told there were a few hundred scientists that were working on disproving his theory. He said that he was surprised, it only takes one scientist to show it's wrong. Then it's wrong.
"I suggest we spend the money on finding an alternative to fossil fuels before they run out. "
Effectively, they'll never run out, they'll just become more and more expensive to obtain - to the point where you need to expend almost as much energy to obtain the energy as you get.
The bigger problem at the moment is that we already developed a workable solution (Molten salt nuclear power) in the 1960s and then threw it away for political reasons.
All the handwaving about renewables ignores the simple fact that renewables can almost replace existing electrical generation capacity but cannot expand generation capacity the 8-fold over that required to account for replacing other carbon emission sources such as heating, transport and industrial processes.
Alvin Weinberg's water-moderated nuclear pile was a good starting point/proof of concept but far too dangerous to scale up to the sizes we have now. They're a giant steam bomb waiting to explode and Alvin Weinberg knew it, which is why he spent the rest of his life working on a safer alternative to the original system he developed - only to see the military hate it due to inability to extract weapons materials from the process and Nixon kill it because it didn't grease the right palms in the right locations.
Even with all their downsides, water-based nuclear systems are safer than the fossil fuel alternatives but MSRs are an opportunity to make that a few hundred(thousand? million?) times safer and remove the worst case scenarios that we've already seen play out several times - no hydrogen explosions, radioactive steam leaks, radioactive fires, meltdowns, prompt criticality steam events (or radiation events of workers), radioactive water leaks, etc - and a 90-99% reduction in input waste (that depends on the enrichment of the fuel but most uranium mined is thrown away before seeing the inside of a reactor) coupled with a 99% reduction in output waste, with what little waste is left mostly having a 10-30 year cooldown period before being valuable saleable materials such as helium and xenon. (Imagine the effects of widely available cheap bulk helium, for starters...)
I think Randall Munroe is hilarious, but his graph proves nothing except one needs to finesse the data to try to make that point.
For example he picked "22000 years ago" as a starting point....why? it's not a particularly round number, like 50k or 25k or even 10k.
But you're posting AC, you're not interested in discussion, are you? Post as something other than AC and I'll waste my time refuting you both.
-Styopa
"The last century has seen more change than in any given ten million year period. "
In this you're entirely wrong. Do you realize that? Entirely, completely, thoroughly, colossally wrong. From where did you get such hyperbole (and think it was right)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Specifically, https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...
Look, the current spike has been replicated barely 100k years ago (note in particular the decptively changing scale of that graph...the rightmost 20% of the graph covers 20k years, the next section 1.98 MILLION and the next about 7.5 million, etc.). If our current temperature changes were compressed to the same degree as the 20k-1mill section, you'd see almost precisely the same spike in climate change happening periodically around every 120-140k years....and then stretch back and see that SAME cycle happening for what, about 3 MILLION years?
So please, while I may agree with you that trillions have been wasted that could have been better spent, let's start the discussion with actual facts perhaps?
-Styopa
Read the top of the image. It explains it.
Oh I get that, but to start ones' "warming graph" at the last ice age is a bit obviously tendentious, isn't it?
-Styopa
You're missing the point here: What's alarming is the current rate of change. It's nothing less than catastrophic.
No, it isn't. Perhaps that word doesn't mean what you think it means.
1) Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... - note in particular the deceptive changing of scales. The rightmost 1/5 of the graph covers the last 20k years; the next graph covers 980k years. Compress the right most graph into the same scale as the 980k year graph, and the current temp spike looks....almost identical to repeated, near "instant" (in that timescale) spikes in temp and CO2. And these happen periodically, about every 120k years. For the last 3 MILLION years.
If you're asserting that this current spike is *entirely* different than all those other nearly-identical periodic spikes, you have to explain how those STOPPED in order to be replaced with this event. The fact that this is likewise on the exact same time cycle is perhaps coincidence then?
2) rate of change is a canard. Krakatoa and Pinatubo exerted about 1.2 degree C global temp shift more or less instantly - that's nearly a CENTURY'S worth of IPCC-threatened warming. It doesn't get faster than that....and their impacts vanish into the data pretty quickly.
Further, there have been repeated historical massive meteorite impacts of massive scope in the geologic record that have significantly changed global climate for decades and centuries, yet in the long term arc of planetary temperature these prove to be spikes that are normalized out.
For some reason - some might draw connections to the rise of the histrionic ecological movements of the 1970s - modern scientists seem to have reversed themselves. Formerly, the earth was seen as a largely stable system in which perturbations from vulcanism or yes, human activity, would eventually be overwhelmed by natural cycles and inertia back to the 'norm'. Now, there's this idea that the earth's systems are somehow chaotic, precariously balanced at this delicate tipping point in which the slightest influence will cause it all to spin wildly into what, sky-falling chaos?
It seems to me that at least for a while, crying wolf gathers a lot more attention, funding, and grant proposals.
-Styopa
There are fewer Big Deal's in science than proving established theories wrong. See the recent meta-study on how a couple glasses of wine may not be so healthy for you after all.
Climate change "skeptics" are free to come up with their own superior studies to prove their case. This is the kind of thing nobel prizes are awarded for, not to mention all the cash Exxon would be happy to give them. Until that happens, though, they're as grounded in science as anti-vaxxers are.
Or, come to think of it, isn't it an Olive Newton John song?
And an Olivia Newton John movie. And it was totally awesome in a bad way. In an enjoyable way.
Kind of hard to square your first sentence with all the articles talking about how difficult it is to get funding to reproduce an experiment, eh?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Not when grants are awarded primarily for producing results as opposed to verifying them.
Indeed, you are correct.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."