6 ms·

The North Atlantic ocean current may be slowing

92 points by maze-le 7y ago

hindsightbias 7y ago
James Burke explains it 30 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfE8wBReIxw&t=47m35s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfE8wBReIxw&t=47m35s
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  It's sobering how on the money After the Warming was. The most glaring thing looking back from now was how little time he thought would be wasted, in a few years of PR and denial, before humanity finally gets its act together with a global world war scale response and a, IIRC, UN Planetary Atmosphere Authority. A good take on what we should be doing, even now. Well worth a watch of the whole 2 programme mini series - just forgive the late 80s CGI. :)
bhouston 7y ago
Been hearing about the possibility of this since 1999 or there about when it was covered at a university lecture. Then there was the movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow Like global warming, it is regularly predicted and in some ways we become immune to the predictions because it is on such a long time scale compared to our attention. Humans do not do well with long-term threats in which we have to make everyday sacrifices. We do better with long-term threats that are clear economic opportunities, such as buying better airport scanners and the like, something the sales guys can really sink their teeth into.
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  That movie was mentioned in the article.
pvaldes 7y ago
If true, is a problem for Europe and there will be consequences and significative economical loses. In the list of posible benefits is the "instantaneous" recovery of submarine kelp forests vanished in the last decades
chupa-chups 7y ago
Its quite impressive that this current transports 1 PW (yes, petawatts: http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/thc_fact_sheet.html http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/thc_fact_sheet.html). If it would be stopping completely, this would naively (excluding other accompanying effects) remove 1 PW of heating from the coasts of Europe. This 1PW of heat would need to disperse somewhere else.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  > This 1PW of heat would need to disperse somewhere else. more hurricanes
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- esotericn 7y ago
  The effects of the gulfstream are utterly enormous. Compare the climate at the arctic circle in Norway/Sweden to Canada. The Arctic itself is very asymmetrical as a result.
  - mrfusion 7y ago
    I never understood why the Gulf Stream heats Europe but not the us east coast. It passes by there first. It seems like it would only get colder after that.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      >I never understood why the Gulf Stream heats Europe but not the us east coast. Who said it doesn't? It absolutely does, that's one of the reason why the east coast is warmer than equivalent (as of latitude) areas in Europe are (plus other effects on the weather there).
      - mrfusion 7y ago
        The east coast isn’t warmer. France is the same latitude as Maine.
phkahler 7y ago
It would be nice to have measurements of the current, rather than just the temperature. The colored plot also looks suspicious, I wonder if it's based on a deviation from normal rather than absolute temperature.
- tony_cannistra 7y ago
  > I wonder if it's based on a deviation from normal rather than absolute temperature. It is.
droithomme 7y ago
The global conveyer belt is really important to global climate. There has been speculation that warming and CO2 absorption by oceans could cause it to slow or stop, triggering an ice age or other extreme catastrophic extinction-level events. Fun to think about: maybe it's happened before after a similar industrial era, buried far below. (Unlikely but conceivable.)
rossdavidh 7y ago
Interesting topic, and perhaps the article/video that this article references is good, but the article in yaleclimateconnections.org is virtually devoid of any actual quantitative data. "May be"...how likely? "...slowing"...by how much? 1% chance of a 1% slowdown? 99% chance of a 99% slowdown? This article is virtually contentless.
FairKing 7y ago
Why Iceland is green and Greenland is icy?
pier25 7y ago
Consistently every year we see news of scientists saying that climate change is going faster than expected. That there is more methane trapped in the permafrost than expected[1], that the models the IPCC used didn't take into account such and such thing and so the next results are going to be closer to reality[2], that the cooling effect of aerosols is much greater than expected[3], etc. At this point I just assume we are pretty much fucked. Even if we reached zero emissions today we'd still be suffering the consequences of climate change for centuries. [1] https://phys.org/news/2018-03-permafrost-methane.html https://phys.org/news/2018-03-permafrost-methane.html [2] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/new-climate-models-predict-warming-surge https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/new-climate-models-p... [3] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6427/eaav0566 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6427/eaav0566
- psadri 7y ago
  A complex system such as the climate (a huge understatement) is full of non linear of feedback loops that we don’t understand or are even aware of. It’s very hard to model such a system accurately. Chances are humans will be a blip after all? It’s amazing to me that we humans usually wait till the shit hits the fan before we do something about it. It must be some kind of evolutionary advantage inducing strategy in our behavior.
  - dantheman 7y ago
    There are many things that can be done, unfortunately for anything truly effective to be done we need: 1. Lower the quality of living for a huge amount of humanity 2. Have massive technological breakthroughs 3. Embark on large scale geo-engineering 2 & 3 are the only moral choices - condemning the world to live in poverty isn't ok. Europe and the US are only ~25% of all emissions and the rest of the world is increasing at a staggering rate.
    - pier25 7y ago
      4. lower the human population Not having kids is probably the biggest contribution one can do for the environment, specially on countries with very high emissions per capita such as the US.

92 points by maze-le 7y ago

James Burke explains it 30 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfE8wBReIxw&t=47m35s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfE8wBReIxw&t=47m35s

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It's sobering how on the money After the Warming was. The most glaring thing looking back from now was how little time he thought would be wasted, in a few years of PR and denial, before humanity finally gets its act together with a global world war scale response and a, IIRC, UN Planetary Atmosphere Authority. A good take on what we should be doing, even now. Well worth a watch of the whole 2 programme mini series - just forgive the late 80s CGI. :)

bhouston 7y ago

Been hearing about the possibility of this since 1999 or there about when it was covered at a university lecture. Then there was the movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow Like global warming, it is regularly predicted and in some ways we become immune to the predictions because it is on such a long time scale compared to our attention. Humans do not do well with long-term threats in which we have to make everyday sacrifices. We do better with long-term threats that are clear economic opportunities, such as buying better airport scanners and the like, something the sales guys can really sink their teeth into.

theandrewbailey 7y ago
That movie was mentioned in the article.

pvaldes 7y ago

If true, is a problem for Europe and there will be consequences and significative economical loses. In the list of posible benefits is the "instantaneous" recovery of submarine kelp forests vanished in the last decades

chupa-chups 7y ago

Its quite impressive that this current transports 1 PW (yes, petawatts: http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/thc_fact_sheet.html http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/thc_fact_sheet.html). If it would be stopping completely, this would naively (excluding other accompanying effects) remove 1 PW of heating from the coasts of Europe. This 1PW of heat would need to disperse somewhere else.

pvaldes 7y ago
> This 1PW of heat would need to disperse somewhere else. more hurricanes
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
esotericn 7y ago
The effects of the gulfstream are utterly enormous. Compare the climate at the arctic circle in Norway/Sweden to Canada. The Arctic itself is very asymmetrical as a result.
- mrfusion 7y ago
  I never understood why the Gulf Stream heats Europe but not the us east coast. It passes by there first. It seems like it would only get colder after that.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >I never understood why the Gulf Stream heats Europe but not the us east coast. Who said it doesn't? It absolutely does, that's one of the reason why the east coast is warmer than equivalent (as of latitude) areas in Europe are (plus other effects on the weather there).
    - mrfusion 7y ago
      The east coast isn’t warmer. France is the same latitude as Maine.

phkahler 7y ago

It would be nice to have measurements of the current, rather than just the temperature. The colored plot also looks suspicious, I wonder if it's based on a deviation from normal rather than absolute temperature.

tony_cannistra 7y ago
> I wonder if it's based on a deviation from normal rather than absolute temperature. It is.

droithomme 7y ago

The global conveyer belt is really important to global climate. There has been speculation that warming and CO2 absorption by oceans could cause it to slow or stop, triggering an ice age or other extreme catastrophic extinction-level events. Fun to think about: maybe it's happened before after a similar industrial era, buried far below. (Unlikely but conceivable.)

rossdavidh 7y ago

Interesting topic, and perhaps the article/video that this article references is good, but the article in yaleclimateconnections.org is virtually devoid of any actual quantitative data. "May be"...how likely? "...slowing"...by how much? 1% chance of a 1% slowdown? 99% chance of a 99% slowdown? This article is virtually contentless.

FairKing 7y ago

Why Iceland is green and Greenland is icy?

pier25 7y ago

Consistently every year we see news of scientists saying that climate change is going faster than expected. That there is more methane trapped in the permafrost than expected[1], that the models the IPCC used didn't take into account such and such thing and so the next results are going to be closer to reality[2], that the cooling effect of aerosols is much greater than expected[3], etc. At this point I just assume we are pretty much fucked. Even if we reached zero emissions today we'd still be suffering the consequences of climate change for centuries. [1] https://phys.org/news/2018-03-permafrost-methane.html https://phys.org/news/2018-03-permafrost-methane.html [2] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/new-climate-models-predict-warming-surge https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/new-climate-models-p... [3] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6427/eaav0566 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6427/eaav0566

psadri 7y ago
A complex system such as the climate (a huge understatement) is full of non linear of feedback loops that we don’t understand or are even aware of. It’s very hard to model such a system accurately. Chances are humans will be a blip after all? It’s amazing to me that we humans usually wait till the shit hits the fan before we do something about it. It must be some kind of evolutionary advantage inducing strategy in our behavior.
- dantheman 7y ago
  There are many things that can be done, unfortunately for anything truly effective to be done we need: 1. Lower the quality of living for a huge amount of humanity 2. Have massive technological breakthroughs 3. Embark on large scale geo-engineering 2 & 3 are the only moral choices - condemning the world to live in poverty isn't ok. Europe and the US are only ~25% of all emissions and the rest of the world is increasing at a staggering rate.
  - pier25 7y ago
    4. lower the human population Not having kids is probably the biggest contribution one can do for the environment, specially on countries with very high emissions per capita such as the US.