5 ms·
The Atlantic is cooling at record speed and nobody knows why
- fsflover 2y agoRecent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41297980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41297980
- r721 2y agoAnd it looks like this scihb.com post is a direct copy of that New Scientist story: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2444394-the-atlantic-is-cooling-at-record-speed-and-nobody-knows-why/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2444394-the-atlantic-is...
- jvanderbot 2y agoWasn't there a movie about this? How the Atlantic rapidly cooled from glacier runoff, due to global climate change causing all the glaciers to melt?
- RGamma 2y agoThe Day After Tomorrow
- neom 2y agoThe other thread said something about a movie also, what is this mystical movie???
- etamponi 2y agoThe day after tomorrow
- Brajeshwar 2y agoI think, "The Day After Tomorrow"
- jdhawk 2y ago[flagged]
- dudeinjapan 2y agoFrozen
- infecto 2y agoWhile sick in bed, I recently rewatched that movie. It's completely ridiculous, but it was also the first thing that came to mind!
- wolfram74 2y agoI saw an interesting review[0] from a climatologist talking about the biggest scientific inaccuracy isn't what you'd think. The mega hurricanes that freeze jet fuel in their eyes because they bring down super high elevation air? Apparently air, like most things, gains a huge amount of kinetic energy when it falls from great heights and would actually be incredibly hot[1], not freezing cold. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlhj-0iAiMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlhj-0iAiMQ [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_temperature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_temperature
- _yb2s 2y agoIt was based on a book “The Coming Global Superstorm” by the late nightime AM radio host Art Bell… known for discussing entertaining but outlandish conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios…. Not exactly for climatology expertise
- vundercind 2y ago[flagged]
- chrisweekly 2y agoIt's easy to imagine glacier runoff would contribute to colder oceans, but I thought that generally speaking, both ocean temperatures and sea level were on the rise. Can someone remedy my ignorance?
- ceejayoz 2y agoGenerally speaking, they are. As with most things, you'll find local fluctuations, like when Buffalo NY gets two meters of snow and Rochester NY gets none.
- Tepix 2y agoThis is indeed very welcome, even if we currently lack the understanding of all involved mechanisms. The hot water in our oceans has caused a global coral bleaching event and the corals need time to recover. The reefs are unfortunately still under a lot of stress from acidification, pollution and mass tourism.
- idiotsecant 2y agoHold that thought. Climate and weather systems are rarely single input single output. And usually the secondary effects are not that everyone gets a free delicious ice cream sandwhich. Usually its more like a crucial ocean current is disrupted by the new temperature gradient and a common primary food source is eliminated or something like that.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- newrotik 2y agoThough not relevant to the Atlantic ocean, it is worth noting that the Australian coral reef has in fact recovered from the disastrous state it was after the bleaching and damage events in 2016/2017. Reef coverage is in fact at the highest levels ever recorded in some areas. It does make one wonder why this more recent good news has not found the same level of exposure as when the situation was bleak back then. Perhaps good news just doesn't gather as many clicks.
- postalrat 2y ago[flagged]
- Tepix 2y agoBBC reported this global bleaching event is also hitting the great barrier reef and things look bleak: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-68508423 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-68508423 The record cover was reported in 2022: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-62402891 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-62402891 But i agree that it got less publicity.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- alex_duf 2y agoI'm not sure about the title "nobody knows why" I recently watched a conference by Prof. Rahmstorf, it was eye opening, and a little bit grim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNNW8c_FaA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNNW8c_FaA
- _heimdall 2y agoI'm never quite sure what to do with these kinds of articles. When we can't actually say what is causing change in the Atlantic Ocean today, its tough to buy any modelling that purports to know what is likely to happened over the coming decades. If our models were really accurate enough to be useful guides, should we have seen a change like this coming or at least be aware of what modelled as a less likely scenario that would lead to this outcome?
- baazaa 2y agoThe AGW case should have been that it's easy to observe the earth is absorbing more energy than it's emitting, easy to demonstrate that this is due to greenhouse gasses, and it doesn't depend on complex modelling but rather basic physics. Instead the atmospheric and oceanographic modellers managed to identify their extremely fallible models with climate change as a thesis, and now half the population trusts those models far too much, and the other half is far too skeptical of global warming generally.
- HPsquared 2y agoThe problem is how to model the humongous influence of water vapour, albedo and cloud cover. There are so many feedbacks and complex dynamics there, it's not as simple as if we simply had a "nitrogen, oxygen and CO2" atmosphere.
- TheBigSalad 2y agoA model that predicts what will happen in 500 years doesn't need to predict every minor deviation in ocean temperature for every quarter of every year.
- _heimdall 2y agoI mentioned decades though, most environmental models target the 20-30 year range and I've never seen one that goes out to 500 years. You're changing my point so you can argue against something I never said. I'd expect a model that is expected to be accurate over a handful of decades would in fact be predictive on the scale of a year or a few years. I also specifically left open the avenue that a model didn't predict this as a likely outcome but did have smaller probability outcomes that would have predicted a temperature decrease. Its reasonable enough that the model may have found this as unlikely, but unreasonable if the model was so wrong that it wasn't even aware of this as a possible outcome in the first few years of the model. The data simply can't be useful 30 years out when it has such blind spots only a year or a few years out. For clarity, when I mention models here I mean all recent environmental models attempting to predict global climate or specifically ocean temperatures. If we have no idea why the temperature has dropped then every model failed to provide any scenarios where that would have happened.
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41297980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41297980
- b0dhimind 2y agoSolar flares... will be an ice age after it cools down.
- ceejayoz 2y agoScientists aren't idiots; they're well aware of the sun's regular cycling, and account for it. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/impacts/space-weather-impacts-climate https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/impacts/space-weather-impacts-clim... https://nso.edu/blog/scientists-develop-new-model-to-estimate-solar-irradiance-variation-over-the-last-five-centuries/ https://nso.edu/blog/scientists-develop-new-model-to-estimat...
- spwa4 2y agoAre they? Scientists are utilitarians. If they don't have a good answer for a problem they assume it's not a problem. (I get the argument that's made. If you waited for perfection you'd wait forever. But it's a fundamentally philosophical position. You should be allowed to disagree. For example, you could choose to wait for ever. Hell, you could choose to be wrong, and as philosophy goes, that's certainly a valid position. There's people arguing that an example of choosing to be wrong is morality, and it's a pretty good argument) For example, what does every theoretical statistics textbook say about both kinds of out-of-distribution predictions? (statistics can only predict continuous functions in the ranges it has data about. And this is badly expressed. In reality there is a "minimum smoothness" the function must have if you want to be successful in predicting (ie. no spikes), and the smoothness requirement gets relaxed somewhat if you have more data, but not much, even with extreme amounts of data. Out of distribution predictions, of course, lead to disaster regardless of how much data you have, as the data is irrelevant). I get it, "theoretical statistics" is a synonym for "nobody has ever read it, nor ever will", but it kind of is what the whole thing is based on nevertheless. No worries, I'm sure machine learning will solve it all, of course. Not that the IPCC report uses theoretical statistics. I would call what it uses "political" statistics. Not in the sense that they choose the outcome (perse), but in the sense that they use methods selected to maximize participation (e.g. giving absolute maximum credit). For example, how do you average 20 models, all based on different principles? When you don't know which is right? Well, it's easy, really. You take out 2-3 models you don't like (but still mention and credit them), then average the models' predictions. And that theoretical statisticians say "that's unfair! Here's a proof can get any prediction you want that way!" is met with "shut up" comments. Well, after checking if that proof wasn't wrong, of course. It wasn't.
- OutOfHere 2y ago(deleted)
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoThis is cooling in the equatorial Atlantic. Collapse of circulation doesn't answer the question at all, because circulation carries heat out of the equatorial region.