50 ms·

Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

309 points by ghc 5y ago

rednerrus 5y ago
If true, this seems bad.
- mrlonglong 5y ago
  That's an understatement!
omginternets 5y ago
I sure hope Western Europe likes it cold. Paris is on roughly the same latitude of Quebec city.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  Norway would probably be hugely affected. They are pretty far up north, but, thanks to Gulfstream, have rather mild weather on the coast.
- anonymousDan 5y ago
  Isn't this basically what caused the last ice age? The gulf stream is effectively the only thing keeping places like Ireland and England relatively mild given their latitude.
  - arethuza 5y ago
    You might be thinking of the Younger Dryas - which was a relatively short cooling in places like the UK with some re-glaciation here in Scotland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas
  - VintageCool 5y ago
    No. The effect of the gulf stream is overstated. Wind at these latitudes travels prevailingly westerly. England and Ireland are downwind of the ocean, which maintains more stable temperature than the land. British Columbia and Seattle are also downwind of the ocean and also relatively mild. New England gets cold because it is downwind of the continent. Also because the Rocky Mountains diverts the jet stream, exposing New England to more severe polar weather. The severe climate shocks of the past few thousand years were the result of massive ice-dammed glacial lakes (like Lake Agassiz) breaking through the dam and releasing incredible quantities of freshwater into the northern oceans all at once.
    - anonymousDan 5y ago
      Very interesting, thanks. One less thing to worry about!
spockz 5y ago
So what do we do about this? Increase the salinity? Install huge pumps? (The last thing is only partly in jest.)
- _rpd 5y ago
  Both have been proposed: http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/16202/1/Hunt2019_Article_CoolingDownTheWorldOceansAndTh.pdf http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/16202/1/Hunt2019_Article_C...
- dylan604 5y ago
  Increase the salinity with desalinzation and putting the brine back into the ocean. Solve loss of water and salinity! Boom done! Simple, right?
matttproud 5y ago
Makes me look back at the last 20-30 years of discourse in the United States and let out a deep sigh. Had CFC propellants emerged today, I highly doubt the U.S. would have been a signatory to the Montreal Protocol — just to own the libs or avoid hindering the market by a boogeyman of 0.0001% overhead or some other form of contrarian political identity differentiation.
- slownews45 5y ago
  Yeah - even where I am there has been a pull back on stuff. We've got a ban on plastic straws (ie, you can't use one then throw it in the trash in the resteraunt) to help save nature. But you go outside and the amount of trash just blowing into the water from various encampments near the water is just nuts. Their are claims of concerns about carbon emissions, but absolute opposition to any work around nuclear. If carbon emissions was the or a very important issue, you'd be going full out on lots of ideas. I followed the attempted development of a solar install closely in a rich / white area (hard left otherwise). It was fought tooth and nail. the erosion underneath, the shading of a creek, this and that. Really - they didn't want to look at it. Full stop. So yes, even my early passion for some things have moderated a bit. It seems to be the left telling other people how to live. Heaven forbid folks live in smaller houses in the US, instead we are on china for their emissions (likely half per capita of US?) I'd love to see more problem solving from the left, rather than the sort of in your face bans on things. Can't we tax plastic straws 1 cent per straw or do a carbon tax or something that's a bit less nanny state style or so random and arbitrary?
  - erhk 5y ago
    Trash from encampments is negligible when you realize how many plastics are just dumped into the ocean
    - slownews45 5y ago
      Not where I live. The trash from encampments is pulled up and down the shoreline (tons of bird and other life) with every tide. It's noticeable. Tons of plastic in ocean for sure, but less noticeable unless you are in asia where the rivers and coastal areas are crushed with trash at times. It's just weird our focus is on a plastic straw being disposed of in a restaurant. I mean, the amount of plastic bags in the shipping boxes I see on my street each trash day - mindboggling (airbags amazon and others use).
lend000 5y ago
Can't read the whole article, but how radically can the Gulf Stream really change? Isn't a current going in that general direction more or less mandated by the Coriolis effect? It's why I figured the west and east coasts of continents at similar latitudes (both in the Northern and Southern hemispheres) have similar climate patterns. (West coasts more temperate, east coasts more variable and humid).
- frankbreetz 5y ago
  Barcelona and Washington D.C. are on the same latitude, the weather difference is caused by the gulf stream pushing warm air north, I would imagine it could stop doing that.
  - wil421 5y ago
    Chicago is below Rome. My latitude puts me somewhere in Syria. Not sure what is worse the humidity where I live or Syrian Desert. https://matadornetwork.com/read/mapped-united-states-canada-latitudes-europe/ https://matadornetwork.com/read/mapped-united-states-canada-...
  - arethuza 5y ago
    "Barcelona and Washington D.C." I don't think that's correct - a quick check on Google maps suggests that Barcelona is much further north - about Cape Cod or so.
    - frankbreetz 5y ago
      I don't think that changes the point trying to be made. Cape Cod and D.C. have essentially the same weather
- progbits 5y ago
  For the first part of your quesition, to quote wikipedia (feel free to check the primary sources yourself): > Atlantic overturning is not a static feature of global circulation, but rather a sensitive function of temperature and salinity distributions as well as atmospheric forcings. Paleoceanographic reconstructions of AMOC vigour and configuration have revealed significant variations over geologic time [34][35] complementing variation observed on shorter scales.[36][14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation#AMOC_stability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin...
sleepytimetea 5y ago
I was able to read only the abstract - "Rent or Buy article for $8.99". Brings up the question, what does "rent an article" mean ?
- progbits 5y ago
  I suspect some shitty DRM that gives you access for a while with attempts to limit your ability to save, copy or print the article? Scummy practice nonetheless. Sci-hub doesn't have this yet but I expect it to appear there soon enough.
  - Miraste 5y ago
    Sci-hub is not adding new papers as part of an attempt to win a court case in India. https://old.reddit.com/r/scihub/comments/lofj0r/announcement_scihub_has_been_paused_no_new/ https://old.reddit.com/r/scihub/comments/lofj0r/announcement...
- mikestew 5y ago
  "Time-limited", as the explanatory text right below says: Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube. I fear to ask what the DRM scheme is.
- ianferrel 5y ago
  It says you get access to it for 48 hours. So, same thing as renting anything else?
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Too bad it's paywalled :(
- seacroissant 5y ago
  Full article is downloadable here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269281476_Early_warning_signals_of_Atlantic_Meridional_Overturning_Circulation_collapse_in_a_fully_coupled_climate_model https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269281476_Early_war...
  - pvg 5y ago
    That's a paper from 2014 with different authors
  - _rpd 5y ago
    This is a different paper.
deanCommie 5y ago
Before someone makes the inevitable joke, no this will not help offset climate change temperature gains and neutralize the risk of heat-waves. The summer temperatures will continue to get hotter. It's the winter temperatures that will get colder. Both require energy use to keep housing liveable. Which, unless we dramatically transition our energy generation to renewables, will just continue exacerbating the climate problem. Ugh.
- nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
  I did not know Gulf stream stops being a warm stream in summer, what an interesting phenomenon.
- qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
  It would have been nice if the environmentalists hadn't stopped nuclear energy in it's tracks.
  - wittycardio 5y ago
    Would be nicer if you knew who to actually blame
    - yodelshady 5y ago
      No, the greens don't get away that easily. Fossil fuel companies are the prime cause, but the opposition were every bit as aware of the consequences of not shifting away and every bit as culpable for frustrating that shift. They chose to ignore the consequences because shouting "nein danke" at everything makes you look principled.
      - cableshaft 5y ago
        While I agree it shouldn't have been slowed down when it did, Nuclear Power Plants are not going to save us now. "Nuclear energy is being outcompeted by renewable energy sources and is an inefficient solution to carbon emissions, according to the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) published on 24 September 2019." "The report estimates that the average construction time for reactors worldwide was ten years, significantly longer than the World Nuclear Association’s estimated construction time of between five and eight years. Nuclear reactors are also slow to start and a number have closed, with nine units closing over 2018 and a further five units expected to close over 2019." "The report also states that nuclear power is more expensive than renewables. Nuclear energy costs around $112-189 per megawatt hour (MWh) compared to $26-56MWh for onshore wind and $36-44MWh for solar power. Levelised cost estimates for solar and wind also dropped by 88% and 69% respectively, while they increased by 23% for nuclear power." https://www.power-technology.com/news/nuclear-energy-report-wnisr/ https://www.power-technology.com/news/nuclear-energy-report-...
cwkoss 5y ago
What would happen if the Gulf Stream did collapse? Would a different similar circulatory system emerge soon after? Would the lack of a dominant system lead to many more smaller chaotic systems? Do we just not know what would happen, so that it's concerning in that it's unknowable?
- the8472 5y ago
  There is no requirement that water MUST circulate. It could simply stagnate. That's pretty much the worst case though, a weakened gulf stream is not the same as a total collapse.
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    As long as there are temperature differences between the poles and the equator, there will be movement of water. That's thermodynamics in play.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    I think that would require all the water be the same temperature.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  Just watch The Day After Tomorrow to know what happens.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    No, that is heavily sensationalized. But a new 'small ice age' as a result of the gulfstream shutting down is a serious possibility, even if it changed direction that would already cause serious problems for very large parts of Europe.
    - fosk 5y ago
      Although the benefit would be increased reflection of sunlight due to more icy (reflective) surface which would alleviate (or reverse?) the current weather warming trend.
freeslave 5y ago
different, but non paywalled article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-crisis-scientists-spot-warning-signs-of-gulf-stream-collapse https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
Does anyone have a link to the PDF?
7402 5y ago
The actual title is "Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation." I don't think the AMOC is exactly the same as the Gulf Stream, although I believe they are related. This is not my area of expertise. Could anyone explain this a little better? Why was the title changed?
- hughes 5y ago
  I for one would have no idea what "Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation" refers to.
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin... It's a circulation in the Atlantic that pulls warm water from the equator up towards Europe and the arctic.
- roter 5y ago
  As long as the winds blow and the Earth spins, we will have a Gulf Stream. What the paper is referring to is the three-dimensional circulation driven by salt and heat fluxes. Sinking cold water near places like Iceland and gradual upwelling of hot water in the tropics. Net result is transport of heat from tropics to poles and since it is water with a high heat capacity, a lot of heat! If this 3D flow is lessened, it means other things must adjust to compensate --- like midlatitude storms etc. The AMOC also "pulls" the Gulf Stream more northerly before it closes the loop and comes down the coast of western Europe. So UK, Ireland warmer than you'd expect given the latitude. Clear as mud?
  - circlefavshape 5y ago
    > As long as the winds blow and the Earth spins, we will have a Gulf Stream I don't think this is true. Didn't the Gulf Stream shut off during the Ice Ages? At least that's what I learned at college in the early 90s
jacquesm 5y ago
After seeing the global chaotic response to COVID I'm convinced that climate change will not receive a meaningful response until it is way too late. It apparently needs to hit the majority of the planet right in the gut (and then preferably the wealthy part) for people to get off their collective asses and do something about it. I'm just about ready to pack it in and hope the next generation is smarter than this one because we sure messed it up. We'll go into the history books as the people that could have fixed it but didn't because we were too busy with our lifestyle.
- konschubert 5y ago
  But we used paper straws, isn’t that enough? In al seriousness, the next generation isn’t going to be all that different than the last 10000 generations of mankind.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    They could very well be different than all of the preceding ones in the sense that there could be less of them than the preceding generation which is something that hasn't happened since mankind started to reproduce in earnest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Past_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Past_populati... Famines, pandemics and wars are mere speed bumps compared to the kind of impact this can have. And if not the next generation then maybe the one after it but this will not go on for much longer before some kind of limit is reached. It's all the same until suddenly it's not.
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      Homo sapiens is simply not equipped to handle exponential growth when planning for the future. Luckily, it seems that the birth rate slowdown is a global phenomenon and it’s likely that the peak population will be well below three times the current population. We are not deer who have no other option but to reproduce at full capacity until the population collapses.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
holoduke 5y ago
Nuclear power is needed everywhere. All major grids. And all containerships. Doable in 20-40 years with some serious effort.
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  Nuclear container ships are such a good idea. It is maddening we haven't done this and only turn war ships into nuclear power.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That's a non-proliferation issue more than anything else.
    - qbasic_forever 5y ago
      Let the nuclear powers build the reactors and design the ships to slide them in like big batteries then IMHO. There can't be more than a few thousand cargo ships in the world--it's a risk that could be managed.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        They get hijacked with some regularity.
      - stoolpigeon 5y ago
        I've only observed it from the outside (I worked on an aircraft carrier - but nothing to do with the power plants) but what I observed is that it takes a lot of people that get payed a lot of money in the private sector to safely operate and maintain reactors. I'm guessing that the building costs would be dwarfed by the long term cost of manning nuclear ships.
        qbasic_forever 5y ago
        Interesting challenge for us then--if we're pouring money into self-driving cars and constantly making strides there, why can't we do the same for fully automated self-running nuclear reactors. If there's a future where we trust cars 100% to drive every family safely around town, we should be able to trust reactors to run themselves and fail safe. I don't see why a human brain has to be in the critical loop of reactor operation, other than tradition or legal CYA.
Permit 5y ago
I often hear that as individuals we can't really be held responsible for climate change and that instead we should look to our government to impose laws that restrict carbon output. This made me curious: what is the "fair" amount of carbon dioxide that the average individual can emit? According to this article[1][2] published in Nature it looks like the answer is 1.61 metric tons of CO2/year. That strikes me as close-to-impossible for industrialized nations to achieve. A round-trip flight from NYC to SF emits 1.5 metric tons per passenger. In order to reach 1.61 metric tons an individual would not be able to own a gas-powered car, could not regularly consume meat, could not live in remote areas only visitable by plane etc. Many things people don't even consider "luxuries" (like visiting family overseas) would be a non-starter. In France they implemented a modest fuel tax and they got the Yellow Vest Protests[3] in response. I can't see the average individual ever voting for a party that wouldn't let them visit family and nearly eliminate meat consumption. As China, India and Indonesia have industrialized their per-capita emissions have shot up well above these levels as well. I imagine the same thing will happen with African nations over the next 25-50 years. I don't really see any way out of this other than some miraculous technological breakthroughs like solar powered planes which I understand to be near-impossible with today's technology. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0021-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0021-4 [2] https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0021-4 https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-01... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > That strikes me as close-to-impossible for industrialized nations to achieve. A round-trip flight from NYC to SF emits 1.5 metric tons per passenger. In order to reach 1.61 metric tons an individual would not be able to own a gas-powered car, could not regularly consume meat, could not live in remote areas only visitable by plane etc. So? > Many things people don't even consider "luxuries" (like visiting family overseas) would be a non-starter. That is a luxury, whether you consider it one or not is irrelevant. When you emigrate there are certain consequences.
  - richwater 5y ago
vimy 5y ago
Could we restart the Gulf Stream with some kind of technology? In theory?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Wait.
- raisedbyninjas 5y ago
  I did some napkin math once for artificially replacing the salt content in the ocean where it is diluted by glacier runoff. It was on the order of all container ships in operation re-purposed to just dumping salt into the affected region.
  - inetknght 5y ago
    Where would you even get that much salt anyway? The ocean perhaps?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ghastmaster 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream > The warm water and temperature contrast along the edge of the Gulf Stream often increase the intensity of cyclones, tropical or otherwise. There should be less quantity and intensity of storms in the Atlantic, in the event this takes place.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  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... The opposite appears to be true, according to this article at least: > 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. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079665
- roter 5y ago
  Not necessarily. The AMOC transports heat poleward in order to balance the net surplus of solar radiation in the tropics and net deficit radiational cooling at the poles. Lessening this pathway may mean other pathways may need to increase to compensate: like storms in the atmosphere.
backprop1993 5y ago
I think back to how we have responded to this pandemic. We were in denial until the pandemic was spreading unchecked wildly through the population, and even a good chunk of the population is still in denial after 100,000s of dead. We are a hopeless species when it comes to organizing effective collective action ahead of known disaster. We seem to only respond collectively once disaster has struck, and even then it takes time. I read a book in 1997 that was about this. Can not remember the name or author of it for the life of me. It was about climate change and the risk that North Atlantic currents would shift causing a state change that would be hard to reverse. 24 years later we think it is getting closer, but we still do not act swiftly.
- davesque 5y ago
  Don't give up hope. We licked CFCs and leaded gasoline. There are probably plenty of other times in history when we mobilized to solve a problem at scale. These are discouraging times for sure. But ultimately there's just no point in being hopeless.
  - sizzle 5y ago
    What’s the reference of licking cfcs referring to?
    - kenny11 5y ago
      Banning ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol
    - jtms 5y ago
      CFC == Chlorofluorocarbons, "lick" is slang for "defeating". It means we passed law prohibiting the use of CFCs.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- jacquesm 5y ago
progbits 5y ago
Full paper: https://rdcu.be/cspBH https://rdcu.be/cspBH Link courtesy of https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/oykg1y/climate_crisis_scientists_spot_warning_signs_of/h7tyxut https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/oykg1y/climate_cri...
magwa101 5y ago
Global warming is just a couple of degrees, so if it's freezing in Europe, it's going to be really hot somewhere else...I wonder where that will be?
ashgreat 5y ago
I created a shareable link from my university's account. I checked it, you will be able read the article in the browser but can't download it: https://rdcu.be/cstep https://rdcu.be/cstep
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  You're great, Ash ;)
y04nn 5y ago
This talk [1] by Dr. Jennifer Francis is a must watch, not the one I was looking for but this one is probably more up to date. She starts to talk about the Gulf Stream about 30 minutes into the talk. [1] https://youtu.be/QmGK6TpiwIA https://youtu.be/QmGK6TpiwIA
rationalist2948 5y ago
There is a lot of hand wringing, worrying, blaming about evil, short sighted, negligent, irresponsible humans doing serious damage to the environment and the planet and causing disastrous, dangerous, destructive world wide climate change, global warming, rising sea levels, etc. There is no end of what we can worry about, e.g., Yellowstone erupting, another Krakatoa, having the atmosphere of the earth blown off by the blast from a supernova, etc. But just now the claim that human sources of CO2 are having significant effects on the climate, temperature, sea level, etc. are the source of a lot of angst and anxiety. So, we need to filter, separate possible disasters for which we have good evidence and can do something about from the endless number of disasters for which we have no credible evidence. For human sources of CO2: So far there is no, none, nichts, nada, nil, zip, zilch, zero credible evidence that human sources of CO2 have had, are having, or will have a significant effect on the climate, temperature, sea level, etc. No evidence that is credible. All the credibility was lost, blown, thrown away, destroyed by the many predictions of significant temperature increases that didn't happen, as in the well known http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg As a result, the alarm, angst, anxiety, hand wringing about human sources of CO2 is irrational, foolish, irresponsible, and supporting an industry of hysteria that is just a flim-flam, fraud, scam on the backs and in the pockets of billions of people and making a few people rich. While we know very well how to measure temperature and how to average it, we don't even have meaningful measures of climate. For the science that might be relevant, essentially all of it fails to be science because it has long shown to have no predictive value. In response, until there is credible evidence that human activities can do good things for the climate, we should just junk the alarmists and forget about human sources of CO2.
- loopz 5y ago
  When you accept evidence it'll already be 20-30 years too late.
  - rationalist2948 5y ago
    Again, once again, over again, yet again, one more time, you have another of the alarmist, angst, anxiety statements with no science support -- all the attempts at science to support such statements have no predictive value and, thus, are not science. I gave a link to solid evidence of the lack of predictive value. And the doomsday predictions such as your "it'll already be 20-30 years too late" are irrational, irresponsible, dangerous, destructive guesses that stand to do serious damage to our economy, hurt billions of people, and make a few people rich. It's a flim-flam, fraud, scam. We need to grow up, be adults, and not fall for such a brain-dead scam. The potential damage to the economy is obvious and solid; that we are doing or even can do anything significant to the temperature, climate, sea level, etc. is just wild, irresponsible, dangerous, destructive guessing, shooting ourselves in our guts for no good reason. Again, no credible evidence. Loss of credibility from alarmist predictions that didn't come true. No science with predictive value, that is, no science at all.
felgueres 5y ago
Solutions to climate change are not behavioral as some suggest here. It’s about incentives. Transitioning to carbon neutral energy is possible at the expense of businesses’ cost structure, ie. less competitive. Same applies to building retrofitting, agriculture and other major carbon emitters. There is no serious conversation about climate change without looking at nuclear energy; it is base load generation (24/7), cheap and carbon neutral. Bipartisan federal mandates to scale nuclear energy is the only real solution to this problem.
- VintageCool 5y ago
  Renewable energy is the most likely solution to this problem. Wind and solar are ready to scale and take over electricity generation. Wind, solar, batteries, and transmission lines. That is a solution we could deploy today and it is being deployed today. There is a further backlog of wind projects in the US that could be unlocked if we approve transmission lines (like SOO Green) to bring power from the Midwest to the Northeast. https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power The amount of power that we produce from nuclear in the US basically hasn't changed in 20 years. Wind has gone from almost zero to 8.4% of our total production in 15 years. Solar has gone from almost zero to 2.3% in 5 years. I expect that the US will be producing more power from wind than coal in 5 years.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  "Bipartisan federal mandates to scale nuclear energy is the only real solution to this problem" Where to start? Bipartisan implies 'America', which is not 'the world'. Scaling up nuclear energy implies even more energy consumption rather than to do the obvious: shut down coal and gas fired plants and cap the per capita energy budget to something reasonable. Finally, nuclear instead of solar/wind is going to push yet another problem down to future generations.
  - felgueres 5y ago
    Energy consumption correlates to quality of life. Lower energy consumption is politically less feasible to implement, regressive and undesirable. Bipartisan refers to cooperation of two political parties, not 'America'. But sure, few other countries have only two major political factions. More generally I meant to promote nuclear energy in political cooperation. You are right in that the obvious is shutting down coal and gas plants. The less obvious is that natural gas generation is very cost competitive. Solar/Wind are not viable solutions at the deployment velocity we need to achieve targets. Also, they are not base load, so you are assuming storage is available and cost-competitive which seems to be 5-10 yrs from now. An honest conversation of decarbonizing electricity has nuclear front and center.
SergeAx 5y ago
Sounds like it is a time to re-download FrostPunk from Steam.
kevmo 5y ago
Dang. This got removed.
dang 5y ago
Url changed from https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01097-4 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01097-4, which is hardwalled, to a third-party article suggested by nerdponx here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079667 (thanks!)
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Since we can’t get global cooperation on this, I think geo-engineering for reduced solar absorption is something to seriously consider.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  So, because we can't get global cooperation on this we will have to engage in a global program?
transfer92 5y ago
One published study does not equal scientific truth! There's a more temperate article in the New York Times, that's worth reading analytically. Look at the carefully-phrased responses of other scientists. Some of them appear to be struggling to say something polite about the study. "Interesting," is word used both by victims of amateur chefs and fellow scientists reading a new article when confronted by something they're not sure about swallowing. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/us/gulf-stream-collapse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/us/gulf-stream-collapse.h... Alex Hall, the director of the Center for Climate Science at the University of California, Los Angeles: "the findings did not signal to him that any collapse of that ocean system might be imminent" "we don’t really know the reaction we’ll cause" Andrew Pershing, director of climate science at Climate Central: "The work is fascinating" "The big challenge is, what do we do with that information?" Susan Lozier, a physical oceanographer and dean at the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech: She also called Dr. Boers’ study “interesting,” but said she wasn’t convinced that the findings showed that circulation in that ocean system is slowing.
hollerith 5y ago
OK, but the largest factor keeping Europe warm is not the Gulf Stream but rather the Rocky Mountains (via their effects on air currents): https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-source-of-europes-mild-climate https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-source-of-euro...

309 points by ghc 5y ago

rednerrus 5y ago

If true, this seems bad.

mrlonglong 5y ago
That's an understatement!

omginternets 5y ago

I sure hope Western Europe likes it cold. Paris is on roughly the same latitude of Quebec city.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
burntoutfire 5y ago
Norway would probably be hugely affected. They are pretty far up north, but, thanks to Gulfstream, have rather mild weather on the coast.
anonymousDan 5y ago
Isn't this basically what caused the last ice age? The gulf stream is effectively the only thing keeping places like Ireland and England relatively mild given their latitude.
- arethuza 5y ago
  You might be thinking of the Younger Dryas - which was a relatively short cooling in places like the UK with some re-glaciation here in Scotland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas
- VintageCool 5y ago
  No. The effect of the gulf stream is overstated. Wind at these latitudes travels prevailingly westerly. England and Ireland are downwind of the ocean, which maintains more stable temperature than the land. British Columbia and Seattle are also downwind of the ocean and also relatively mild. New England gets cold because it is downwind of the continent. Also because the Rocky Mountains diverts the jet stream, exposing New England to more severe polar weather. The severe climate shocks of the past few thousand years were the result of massive ice-dammed glacial lakes (like Lake Agassiz) breaking through the dam and releasing incredible quantities of freshwater into the northern oceans all at once.
  - anonymousDan 5y ago
    Very interesting, thanks. One less thing to worry about!

spockz 5y ago

So what do we do about this? Increase the salinity? Install huge pumps? (The last thing is only partly in jest.)

_rpd 5y ago
Both have been proposed: http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/16202/1/Hunt2019_Article_CoolingDownTheWorldOceansAndTh.pdf http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/16202/1/Hunt2019_Article_C...
dylan604 5y ago
Increase the salinity with desalinzation and putting the brine back into the ocean. Solve loss of water and salinity! Boom done! Simple, right?

matttproud 5y ago

Makes me look back at the last 20-30 years of discourse in the United States and let out a deep sigh. Had CFC propellants emerged today, I highly doubt the U.S. would have been a signatory to the Montreal Protocol — just to own the libs or avoid hindering the market by a boogeyman of 0.0001% overhead or some other form of contrarian political identity differentiation.

slownews45 5y ago
Yeah - even where I am there has been a pull back on stuff. We've got a ban on plastic straws (ie, you can't use one then throw it in the trash in the resteraunt) to help save nature. But you go outside and the amount of trash just blowing into the water from various encampments near the water is just nuts. Their are claims of concerns about carbon emissions, but absolute opposition to any work around nuclear. If carbon emissions was the or a very important issue, you'd be going full out on lots of ideas. I followed the attempted development of a solar install closely in a rich / white area (hard left otherwise). It was fought tooth and nail. the erosion underneath, the shading of a creek, this and that. Really - they didn't want to look at it. Full stop. So yes, even my early passion for some things have moderated a bit. It seems to be the left telling other people how to live. Heaven forbid folks live in smaller houses in the US, instead we are on china for their emissions (likely half per capita of US?) I'd love to see more problem solving from the left, rather than the sort of in your face bans on things. Can't we tax plastic straws 1 cent per straw or do a carbon tax or something that's a bit less nanny state style or so random and arbitrary?
- erhk 5y ago
  Trash from encampments is negligible when you realize how many plastics are just dumped into the ocean
  - slownews45 5y ago
    Not where I live. The trash from encampments is pulled up and down the shoreline (tons of bird and other life) with every tide. It's noticeable. Tons of plastic in ocean for sure, but less noticeable unless you are in asia where the rivers and coastal areas are crushed with trash at times. It's just weird our focus is on a plastic straw being disposed of in a restaurant. I mean, the amount of plastic bags in the shipping boxes I see on my street each trash day - mindboggling (airbags amazon and others use).

lend000 5y ago

Can't read the whole article, but how radically can the Gulf Stream really change? Isn't a current going in that general direction more or less mandated by the Coriolis effect? It's why I figured the west and east coasts of continents at similar latitudes (both in the Northern and Southern hemispheres) have similar climate patterns. (West coasts more temperate, east coasts more variable and humid).

frankbreetz 5y ago
Barcelona and Washington D.C. are on the same latitude, the weather difference is caused by the gulf stream pushing warm air north, I would imagine it could stop doing that.
- wil421 5y ago
  Chicago is below Rome. My latitude puts me somewhere in Syria. Not sure what is worse the humidity where I live or Syrian Desert. https://matadornetwork.com/read/mapped-united-states-canada-latitudes-europe/ https://matadornetwork.com/read/mapped-united-states-canada-...
- arethuza 5y ago
  "Barcelona and Washington D.C." I don't think that's correct - a quick check on Google maps suggests that Barcelona is much further north - about Cape Cod or so.
  - frankbreetz 5y ago
    I don't think that changes the point trying to be made. Cape Cod and D.C. have essentially the same weather
progbits 5y ago
For the first part of your quesition, to quote wikipedia (feel free to check the primary sources yourself): > Atlantic overturning is not a static feature of global circulation, but rather a sensitive function of temperature and salinity distributions as well as atmospheric forcings. Paleoceanographic reconstructions of AMOC vigour and configuration have revealed significant variations over geologic time [34][35] complementing variation observed on shorter scales.[36][14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation#AMOC_stability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin...

sleepytimetea 5y ago

I was able to read only the abstract - "Rent or Buy article for $8.99". Brings up the question, what does "rent an article" mean ?

progbits 5y ago
I suspect some shitty DRM that gives you access for a while with attempts to limit your ability to save, copy or print the article? Scummy practice nonetheless. Sci-hub doesn't have this yet but I expect it to appear there soon enough.
- Miraste 5y ago
  Sci-hub is not adding new papers as part of an attempt to win a court case in India. https://old.reddit.com/r/scihub/comments/lofj0r/announcement_scihub_has_been_paused_no_new/ https://old.reddit.com/r/scihub/comments/lofj0r/announcement...
mikestew 5y ago
"Time-limited", as the explanatory text right below says: Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube. I fear to ask what the DRM scheme is.
ianferrel 5y ago
It says you get access to it for 48 hours. So, same thing as renting anything else?

GekkePrutser 5y ago

Too bad it's paywalled :(

seacroissant 5y ago
Full article is downloadable here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269281476_Early_warning_signals_of_Atlantic_Meridional_Overturning_Circulation_collapse_in_a_fully_coupled_climate_model https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269281476_Early_war...
- pvg 5y ago
  That's a paper from 2014 with different authors
- _rpd 5y ago
  This is a different paper.

deanCommie 5y ago

Before someone makes the inevitable joke, no this will not help offset climate change temperature gains and neutralize the risk of heat-waves. The summer temperatures will continue to get hotter. It's the winter temperatures that will get colder. Both require energy use to keep housing liveable. Which, unless we dramatically transition our energy generation to renewables, will just continue exacerbating the climate problem. Ugh.

nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
I did not know Gulf stream stops being a warm stream in summer, what an interesting phenomenon.
qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
It would have been nice if the environmentalists hadn't stopped nuclear energy in it's tracks.
- wittycardio 5y ago
  Would be nicer if you knew who to actually blame
  - yodelshady 5y ago
    No, the greens don't get away that easily. Fossil fuel companies are the prime cause, but the opposition were every bit as aware of the consequences of not shifting away and every bit as culpable for frustrating that shift. They chose to ignore the consequences because shouting "nein danke" at everything makes you look principled.
    - cableshaft 5y ago
      While I agree it shouldn't have been slowed down when it did, Nuclear Power Plants are not going to save us now. "Nuclear energy is being outcompeted by renewable energy sources and is an inefficient solution to carbon emissions, according to the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) published on 24 September 2019." "The report estimates that the average construction time for reactors worldwide was ten years, significantly longer than the World Nuclear Association’s estimated construction time of between five and eight years. Nuclear reactors are also slow to start and a number have closed, with nine units closing over 2018 and a further five units expected to close over 2019." "The report also states that nuclear power is more expensive than renewables. Nuclear energy costs around $112-189 per megawatt hour (MWh) compared to $26-56MWh for onshore wind and $36-44MWh for solar power. Levelised cost estimates for solar and wind also dropped by 88% and 69% respectively, while they increased by 23% for nuclear power." https://www.power-technology.com/news/nuclear-energy-report-wnisr/ https://www.power-technology.com/news/nuclear-energy-report-...

cwkoss 5y ago

What would happen if the Gulf Stream did collapse? Would a different similar circulatory system emerge soon after? Would the lack of a dominant system lead to many more smaller chaotic systems? Do we just not know what would happen, so that it's concerning in that it's unknowable?

the8472 5y ago
There is no requirement that water MUST circulate. It could simply stagnate. That's pretty much the worst case though, a weakened gulf stream is not the same as a total collapse.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  As long as there are temperature differences between the poles and the equator, there will be movement of water. That's thermodynamics in play.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  I think that would require all the water be the same temperature.
cinntaile 5y ago
Just watch The Day After Tomorrow to know what happens.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  No, that is heavily sensationalized. But a new 'small ice age' as a result of the gulfstream shutting down is a serious possibility, even if it changed direction that would already cause serious problems for very large parts of Europe.
  - fosk 5y ago
    Although the benefit would be increased reflection of sunlight due to more icy (reflective) surface which would alleviate (or reverse?) the current weather warming trend.

freeslave 5y ago

different, but non paywalled article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-crisis-scientists-spot-warning-signs-of-gulf-stream-collapse https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago

Does anyone have a link to the PDF?

7402 5y ago

The actual title is "Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation." I don't think the AMOC is exactly the same as the Gulf Stream, although I believe they are related. This is not my area of expertise. Could anyone explain this a little better? Why was the title changed?

hughes 5y ago
I for one would have no idea what "Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation" refers to.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin... It's a circulation in the Atlantic that pulls warm water from the equator up towards Europe and the arctic.
roter 5y ago
As long as the winds blow and the Earth spins, we will have a Gulf Stream. What the paper is referring to is the three-dimensional circulation driven by salt and heat fluxes. Sinking cold water near places like Iceland and gradual upwelling of hot water in the tropics. Net result is transport of heat from tropics to poles and since it is water with a high heat capacity, a lot of heat! If this 3D flow is lessened, it means other things must adjust to compensate --- like midlatitude storms etc. The AMOC also "pulls" the Gulf Stream more northerly before it closes the loop and comes down the coast of western Europe. So UK, Ireland warmer than you'd expect given the latitude. Clear as mud?
- circlefavshape 5y ago
  > As long as the winds blow and the Earth spins, we will have a Gulf Stream I don't think this is true. Didn't the Gulf Stream shut off during the Ice Ages? At least that's what I learned at college in the early 90s

jacquesm 5y ago

After seeing the global chaotic response to COVID I'm convinced that climate change will not receive a meaningful response until it is way too late. It apparently needs to hit the majority of the planet right in the gut (and then preferably the wealthy part) for people to get off their collective asses and do something about it. I'm just about ready to pack it in and hope the next generation is smarter than this one because we sure messed it up. We'll go into the history books as the people that could have fixed it but didn't because we were too busy with our lifestyle.

konschubert 5y ago
But we used paper straws, isn’t that enough? In al seriousness, the next generation isn’t going to be all that different than the last 10000 generations of mankind.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  They could very well be different than all of the preceding ones in the sense that there could be less of them than the preceding generation which is something that hasn't happened since mankind started to reproduce in earnest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Past_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Past_populati... Famines, pandemics and wars are mere speed bumps compared to the kind of impact this can have. And if not the next generation then maybe the one after it but this will not go on for much longer before some kind of limit is reached. It's all the same until suddenly it's not.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    Homo sapiens is simply not equipped to handle exponential growth when planning for the future. Luckily, it seems that the birth rate slowdown is a global phenomenon and it’s likely that the peak population will be well below three times the current population. We are not deer who have no other option but to reproduce at full capacity until the population collapses.
- lmilcin 5y ago

holoduke 5y ago

Nuclear power is needed everywhere. All major grids. And all containerships. Doable in 20-40 years with some serious effort.

qbasic_forever 5y ago
Nuclear container ships are such a good idea. It is maddening we haven't done this and only turn war ships into nuclear power.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's a non-proliferation issue more than anything else.
  - qbasic_forever 5y ago
    Let the nuclear powers build the reactors and design the ships to slide them in like big batteries then IMHO. There can't be more than a few thousand cargo ships in the world--it's a risk that could be managed.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      They get hijacked with some regularity.
    - stoolpigeon 5y ago
      I've only observed it from the outside (I worked on an aircraft carrier - but nothing to do with the power plants) but what I observed is that it takes a lot of people that get payed a lot of money in the private sector to safely operate and maintain reactors. I'm guessing that the building costs would be dwarfed by the long term cost of manning nuclear ships.
      - qbasic_forever 5y ago
        Interesting challenge for us then--if we're pouring money into self-driving cars and constantly making strides there, why can't we do the same for fully automated self-running nuclear reactors. If there's a future where we trust cars 100% to drive every family safely around town, we should be able to trust reactors to run themselves and fail safe. I don't see why a human brain has to be in the critical loop of reactor operation, other than tradition or legal CYA.

Permit 5y ago

I often hear that as individuals we can't really be held responsible for climate change and that instead we should look to our government to impose laws that restrict carbon output. This made me curious: what is the "fair" amount of carbon dioxide that the average individual can emit? According to this article[1][2] published in Nature it looks like the answer is 1.61 metric tons of CO2/year. That strikes me as close-to-impossible for industrialized nations to achieve. A round-trip flight from NYC to SF emits 1.5 metric tons per passenger. In order to reach 1.61 metric tons an individual would not be able to own a gas-powered car, could not regularly consume meat, could not live in remote areas only visitable by plane etc. Many things people don't even consider "luxuries" (like visiting family overseas) would be a non-starter. In France they implemented a modest fuel tax and they got the Yellow Vest Protests[3] in response. I can't see the average individual ever voting for a party that wouldn't let them visit family and nearly eliminate meat consumption. As China, India and Indonesia have industrialized their per-capita emissions have shot up well above these levels as well. I imagine the same thing will happen with African nations over the next 25-50 years. I don't really see any way out of this other than some miraculous technological breakthroughs like solar powered planes which I understand to be near-impossible with today's technology. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0021-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0021-4 [2] https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0021-4 https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-01... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests

jacquesm 5y ago
> That strikes me as close-to-impossible for industrialized nations to achieve. A round-trip flight from NYC to SF emits 1.5 metric tons per passenger. In order to reach 1.61 metric tons an individual would not be able to own a gas-powered car, could not regularly consume meat, could not live in remote areas only visitable by plane etc. So? > Many things people don't even consider "luxuries" (like visiting family overseas) would be a non-starter. That is a luxury, whether you consider it one or not is irrelevant. When you emigrate there are certain consequences.
- richwater 5y ago

vimy 5y ago

Could we restart the Gulf Stream with some kind of technology? In theory?

jacquesm 5y ago
Wait.
raisedbyninjas 5y ago
I did some napkin math once for artificially replacing the salt content in the ocean where it is diluted by glacier runoff. It was on the order of all container ships in operation re-purposed to just dumping salt into the affected region.
- inetknght 5y ago
  Where would you even get that much salt anyway? The ocean perhaps?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ghastmaster 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream > The warm water and temperature contrast along the edge of the Gulf Stream often increase the intensity of cyclones, tropical or otherwise. There should be less quantity and intensity of storms in the Atlantic, in the event this takes place.

nerdponx 5y ago
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... The opposite appears to be true, according to this article at least: > 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. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079665
roter 5y ago
Not necessarily. The AMOC transports heat poleward in order to balance the net surplus of solar radiation in the tropics and net deficit radiational cooling at the poles. Lessening this pathway may mean other pathways may need to increase to compensate: like storms in the atmosphere.

backprop1993 5y ago

I think back to how we have responded to this pandemic. We were in denial until the pandemic was spreading unchecked wildly through the population, and even a good chunk of the population is still in denial after 100,000s of dead. We are a hopeless species when it comes to organizing effective collective action ahead of known disaster. We seem to only respond collectively once disaster has struck, and even then it takes time. I read a book in 1997 that was about this. Can not remember the name or author of it for the life of me. It was about climate change and the risk that North Atlantic currents would shift causing a state change that would be hard to reverse. 24 years later we think it is getting closer, but we still do not act swiftly.

davesque 5y ago
Don't give up hope. We licked CFCs and leaded gasoline. There are probably plenty of other times in history when we mobilized to solve a problem at scale. These are discouraging times for sure. But ultimately there's just no point in being hopeless.
- sizzle 5y ago
  What’s the reference of licking cfcs referring to?
  - kenny11 5y ago
    Banning ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol
  - jtms 5y ago
    CFC == Chlorofluorocarbons, "lick" is slang for "defeating". It means we passed law prohibiting the use of CFCs.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jacquesm 5y ago

progbits 5y ago

Full paper: https://rdcu.be/cspBH https://rdcu.be/cspBH Link courtesy of https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/oykg1y/climate_crisis_scientists_spot_warning_signs_of/h7tyxut https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/oykg1y/climate_cri...

magwa101 5y ago

Global warming is just a couple of degrees, so if it's freezing in Europe, it's going to be really hot somewhere else...I wonder where that will be?

ashgreat 5y ago

I created a shareable link from my university's account. I checked it, you will be able read the article in the browser but can't download it: https://rdcu.be/cstep https://rdcu.be/cstep

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
You're great, Ash ;)

y04nn 5y ago

This talk [1] by Dr. Jennifer Francis is a must watch, not the one I was looking for but this one is probably more up to date. She starts to talk about the Gulf Stream about 30 minutes into the talk. [1] https://youtu.be/QmGK6TpiwIA https://youtu.be/QmGK6TpiwIA

rationalist2948 5y ago

There is a lot of hand wringing, worrying, blaming about evil, short sighted, negligent, irresponsible humans doing serious damage to the environment and the planet and causing disastrous, dangerous, destructive world wide climate change, global warming, rising sea levels, etc. There is no end of what we can worry about, e.g., Yellowstone erupting, another Krakatoa, having the atmosphere of the earth blown off by the blast from a supernova, etc. But just now the claim that human sources of CO2 are having significant effects on the climate, temperature, sea level, etc. are the source of a lot of angst and anxiety. So, we need to filter, separate possible disasters for which we have good evidence and can do something about from the endless number of disasters for which we have no credible evidence. For human sources of CO2: So far there is no, none, nichts, nada, nil, zip, zilch, zero credible evidence that human sources of CO2 have had, are having, or will have a significant effect on the climate, temperature, sea level, etc. No evidence that is credible. All the credibility was lost, blown, thrown away, destroyed by the many predictions of significant temperature increases that didn't happen, as in the well known http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg As a result, the alarm, angst, anxiety, hand wringing about human sources of CO2 is irrational, foolish, irresponsible, and supporting an industry of hysteria that is just a flim-flam, fraud, scam on the backs and in the pockets of billions of people and making a few people rich. While we know very well how to measure temperature and how to average it, we don't even have meaningful measures of climate. For the science that might be relevant, essentially all of it fails to be science because it has long shown to have no predictive value. In response, until there is credible evidence that human activities can do good things for the climate, we should just junk the alarmists and forget about human sources of CO2.

loopz 5y ago
When you accept evidence it'll already be 20-30 years too late.
- rationalist2948 5y ago
  Again, once again, over again, yet again, one more time, you have another of the alarmist, angst, anxiety statements with no science support -- all the attempts at science to support such statements have no predictive value and, thus, are not science. I gave a link to solid evidence of the lack of predictive value. And the doomsday predictions such as your "it'll already be 20-30 years too late" are irrational, irresponsible, dangerous, destructive guesses that stand to do serious damage to our economy, hurt billions of people, and make a few people rich. It's a flim-flam, fraud, scam. We need to grow up, be adults, and not fall for such a brain-dead scam. The potential damage to the economy is obvious and solid; that we are doing or even can do anything significant to the temperature, climate, sea level, etc. is just wild, irresponsible, dangerous, destructive guessing, shooting ourselves in our guts for no good reason. Again, no credible evidence. Loss of credibility from alarmist predictions that didn't come true. No science with predictive value, that is, no science at all.

felgueres 5y ago

Solutions to climate change are not behavioral as some suggest here. It’s about incentives. Transitioning to carbon neutral energy is possible at the expense of businesses’ cost structure, ie. less competitive. Same applies to building retrofitting, agriculture and other major carbon emitters. There is no serious conversation about climate change without looking at nuclear energy; it is base load generation (24/7), cheap and carbon neutral. Bipartisan federal mandates to scale nuclear energy is the only real solution to this problem.

VintageCool 5y ago
Renewable energy is the most likely solution to this problem. Wind and solar are ready to scale and take over electricity generation. Wind, solar, batteries, and transmission lines. That is a solution we could deploy today and it is being deployed today. There is a further backlog of wind projects in the US that could be unlocked if we approve transmission lines (like SOO Green) to bring power from the Midwest to the Northeast. https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power The amount of power that we produce from nuclear in the US basically hasn't changed in 20 years. Wind has gone from almost zero to 8.4% of our total production in 15 years. Solar has gone from almost zero to 2.3% in 5 years. I expect that the US will be producing more power from wind than coal in 5 years.
jacquesm 5y ago
"Bipartisan federal mandates to scale nuclear energy is the only real solution to this problem" Where to start? Bipartisan implies 'America', which is not 'the world'. Scaling up nuclear energy implies even more energy consumption rather than to do the obvious: shut down coal and gas fired plants and cap the per capita energy budget to something reasonable. Finally, nuclear instead of solar/wind is going to push yet another problem down to future generations.
- felgueres 5y ago
  Energy consumption correlates to quality of life. Lower energy consumption is politically less feasible to implement, regressive and undesirable. Bipartisan refers to cooperation of two political parties, not 'America'. But sure, few other countries have only two major political factions. More generally I meant to promote nuclear energy in political cooperation. You are right in that the obvious is shutting down coal and gas plants. The less obvious is that natural gas generation is very cost competitive. Solar/Wind are not viable solutions at the deployment velocity we need to achieve targets. Also, they are not base load, so you are assuming storage is available and cost-competitive which seems to be 5-10 yrs from now. An honest conversation of decarbonizing electricity has nuclear front and center.

SergeAx 5y ago

Sounds like it is a time to re-download FrostPunk from Steam.

kevmo 5y ago

Dang. This got removed.

dang 5y ago

Url changed from https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01097-4 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01097-4, which is hardwalled, to a third-party article suggested by nerdponx here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079667 (thanks!)

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Since we can’t get global cooperation on this, I think geo-engineering for reduced solar absorption is something to seriously consider.

jacquesm 5y ago
So, because we can't get global cooperation on this we will have to engage in a global program?

transfer92 5y ago

One published study does not equal scientific truth! There's a more temperate article in the New York Times, that's worth reading analytically. Look at the carefully-phrased responses of other scientists. Some of them appear to be struggling to say something polite about the study. "Interesting," is word used both by victims of amateur chefs and fellow scientists reading a new article when confronted by something they're not sure about swallowing. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/us/gulf-stream-collapse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/us/gulf-stream-collapse.h... Alex Hall, the director of the Center for Climate Science at the University of California, Los Angeles: "the findings did not signal to him that any collapse of that ocean system might be imminent" "we don’t really know the reaction we’ll cause" Andrew Pershing, director of climate science at Climate Central: "The work is fascinating" "The big challenge is, what do we do with that information?" Susan Lozier, a physical oceanographer and dean at the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech: She also called Dr. Boers’ study “interesting,” but said she wasn’t convinced that the findings showed that circulation in that ocean system is slowing.

hollerith 5y ago

OK, but the largest factor keeping Europe warm is not the Gulf Stream but rather the Rocky Mountains (via their effects on air currents): https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-source-of-europes-mild-climate https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-source-of-euro...