Climate Events

[agstar77]

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topstories/ocean-currents-close-to-tipping-point-as-greenland-ice-sheets-melt/vi-BB1e0IJF?ocid=msedgntp

[seldomseen]

That news clip is Absolute nonsense! Can hardly believe you would post that.

[fjlip]

Look! There's a squirrel...Lieberal

[TOM4CWB]

Look! There's a squirrel...Lieberal

Volatility in weather should be the point... how the Sun acts will be key over the next 10 years more than anything else... besides the rampant hypocrisy of civilization feeding on self delusion greed to feed our multinational bullies...

'The Fear of God is the beginning of all Wisdom'

As we kill off depressed and mentally ill people with 'Assisted Suicide' ...adding in the old and young who 'crimp our ego's'... besides the 1.5B humans that have been aborted since 1980...

The Pandemic that is the brainstain of our eastern neighbors civilization manipulation...President Biden/China now encouraging Iran in building their nuke to blow up Israel...

North Korea will be soon out the gate... then we weaponize Space...

The odds of 'Global Warming' ending our civilization, with any sane analyzed standard...is more unlikely than Trump winning 'Man of the Year'!

But lets spend $100T on batteries, EV's, Decommissioning all Coal/then NG... electrical generation in North America... Kill our birds off with our Windkills... and make 100,000's of acres toxic waste lands covered by Sun heat generation farms...

All in a vain attempt to show God who controls earth/civilization/ his creation!!!

[Guest]

[sumdumguy]

Ignore List good👍

[chuckChuck]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/25/atlantic-ocean-circulation-at-weakest-in-a-millennium-say-scientists https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/25/atlantic-ocean-circulation-at-weakest-in-a-millennium-say-scientists


Atlantic Ocean circulation at weakest in a millennium, say scientists

Decline in system underpinning Gulf Stream could lead to more extreme weather in Europe and higher sea levels on US east coast

Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent

Fri 26 Feb 2021 12.06 GMT
First published on Thu 25 Feb 2021 16.00 GMT

The Atlantic Ocean circulation that underpins the Gulf Stream, the weather system that brings warm and mild weather to Europe, is at its weakest in more than a millennium, and climate breakdown is the probable cause, according to new data.

Further weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could result in more storms battering the UK, more intense winters and an increase in damaging heatwaves and droughts across Europe.

Scientists predict that the AMOC will weaken further if global heating continues, and could reduce by about 34% to 45% by the end of this century, which could bring us close to a “tipping point” at which the system could become irrevocably unstable. A weakened Gulf Stream would also raise sea levels on the Atlantic coast of the US, with potentially disastrous consequences.

Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who co-authored the study published on Thursday in Nature Geoscience, told the Guardian that a weakening AMOC would increase the number and severity of storms hitting Britain, and bring more heatwaves to Europe.

He said the circulation had already slowed by about 15%, and the impacts were being seen. “In 20 to 30 years it is likely to weaken further, and that will inevitably influence our weather, so we would see an increase in storms and heatwaves in Europe, and sea level rises on the east coast of the US,” he said.

Rahmstorf and scientists from Maynooth University in Ireland and University College London in the UK concluded that the current weakening had not been seen over at least the last 1,000 years, after studying sediments, Greenland ice cores and other proxy data that revealed past weather patterns over that time. The AMOC has only been measured directly since 2004.

The AMOC is one of the world’s biggest ocean circulation systems, carrying warm surface water from the Gulf of Mexico towards the north Atlantic, where it cools and becomes saltier until it sinks north of Iceland, which in turn pulls more warm water from the Caribbean. This circulation is accompanied by winds that also help to bring mild and wet weather to Ireland, the UK and other parts of western Europe.

Scientists have long predicted a weakening of the AMOC as a result of global heating, and have raised concerns that it could collapse altogether. The new study found that any such point was likely to be decades away, but that continued high greenhouse gas emissions would bring it closer.

Rahmstorf said: “We risk triggering [a tipping point] in this century, and the circulation would spin down within the next century. It is extremely unlikely that we have already triggered it, but if we do not stop global warming, it is increasingly likely that we will trigger it.

“The consequences of this are so massive that even a 10% chance of triggering a breakdown would be an unacceptable risk.”

Research in 2018 also showed a weakening of the AMOC, but the paper in Nature Geoscience says this was unprecedented over the last millennium, a clear indication that human actions are to blame. Scientists have previously said a weakening of the Gulf Stream could cause freezing winters in western Europe and unprecedented changes across the Atlantic.

The AMOC is a large part of the Gulf Stream, often described as the “conveyor belt” that brings warm water from the equator. But the bigger weather system would not break down entirely if the ocean circulation became unstable, because winds also play a key role. The circulation has broken down before, in different circumstances, for instance at the end of the last ice age.

The Gulf Stream is separate from the jet stream that has helped to bring extreme weather to the northern hemisphere in recent weeks, though like the jet stream it is also affected by the rising temperatures in the Arctic. Normally, the very cold temperatures over the Arctic create a polar vortex that keeps a steady jet stream of air currents keeping that cold air in place. But higher temperatures over the Arctic have resulted in a weak and wandering jet stream, which has helped cold weather to spread much further south in some cases, while bringing warmer weather further north in others, contributing to the extremes in weather seen in the UK, Europe and the US in recent weeks.

Similarly, the Gulf Stream is affected by the melting of Arctic ice, which dumps large quantities of cold water to the south of Greenland, disrupting the flow of the AMOC. The impacts of variations in the Gulf Stream are seen over much longer periods than variations in the jet stream, but will also bring more extreme weather as the climate warms.

As well as causing more extreme weather across Europe and the east coast of the US, the weakening of the AMOC could have severe consequences for Atlantic marine ecosystems, disrupting fish populations and other marine life.

Andrew Meijers, the deputy science leader of polar oceans at British Antarctic Survey, who was not involved in the study, said: “The AMOC has a profound influence on global climate, particularly in North America and Europe, so this evidence of an ongoing weakening of the circulation is critical new evidence for the interpretation of future projections of regional and global climate.

“The AMOC is frequently modelled as having a tipping point below some circulation strength, a point at which the relatively stable overturning circulation becomes unstable or even collapses. The ongoing weakening of the overturning means we risk finding that point, which would have profound and likely irreversible impacts on the climate.”

Karsten Haustein, of the Climate Services Center in Germany, also independent of the study, said the US could be at risk of stronger hurricanes as a result of the Gulf Stream’s weakening.

“While the AMOC won’t collapse any time soon, the authors warn that the current could become unstable by the end of this century if warming continues unabated,” he said. “It has already been increasing the risk for stronger hurricanes at the US east coast due to warmer ocean waters, as well as potentially altering circulation patterns over western Europe.”

Dr Levke Caesar, of Maynooth University in Ireland, and the lead author of the paper, said sea level rises on the east coast of the US were another potential consequence. “The northward surface flow of the AMOC leads to a deflection of water masses to the right, away from the US east coast. This is due to Earth’s rotation that diverts moving objects such as currents to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere,” she said. “As the current slows down, this effect weakens and more water can pile up at the US east coast, leading to an enhanced sea level rise.”

[Guest]

A balmy -38 in coleville lake today
Funny how ice melts at that
Luckily it’s warming twice as fast as anywhere else

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I find this stuff fascinating. I read a bunch of articles and comments on this yesterday.
Any research that gets us closer to understanding the cycles of the AMOC, and the North Atlantic Oscillation /NAO, which have such massive effects on the climate, especially in most of Europe, Eastern Canada/US, and into the arctic, is a worthwhile endeavor.
Even if said research is done in the name of human caused global warming, the results are still useful.
The natural cycles of the NAO do seem to be the culprit behind the alternating cold and warm, such as the little ice age, medieval warm period all the way back.
Natural cycles of the AMOC causing even longer term climate cycles.

The more we can learn about these, and what circumstances predict their inevitable cycles, the better we can forecast and prepare.

Taking it a step further, there have been proposals for massive engineering projects to deflect the gulf stream and modify the northern climates for the better. What could possible go wrong?

I keep saying, the best outcome from all the global warming hysteria, is all the research into past and present climate, I'll even throw in the dismal failures of future climate models. When the current cooling phase is finally acknowledged, and the alarmism dies down, we will be infinitely further ahead in our knowledge of all things climate, and we can put that data to use and be much better able to predict and prepare.

Please keep posting any similar articles you come across.

[checking]

The confidence of the sides is what intrigues me.

The one relies on the slosh words of "if, could, probable, likely, unlikely, and an unacceptable chance of 10%".

The other relies on "faith and the fear of God".

No wonder there exist such conflict.