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Major reversal in ocean circulation detected in the Southern Ocean
- whatever1 1y agoThat is the sh* that happens when we move the system too far away from its previous equilibrium. It might settle to a drastically different one that will decimate huge proportions of population.
- turbofreak 1y ago[flagged]
- throwawayqqq11 1y ago... sounds like ignorance. If its really just a half conscious defensive trigger, thanks to you and your kind responsible for that development.
- CobrastanJorji 1y ago[flagged]
- turbofreak 1y ago[flagged]
- CobrastanJorji 1y agoOverestimate our value on whose value system?
- bowsamic 1y agoYes, it is anthropocentric, that’s the point
- lynx97 1y agoYou explained it in the last sentence. Some people are just more anthropocentric then others. IOW, some people get all emotional if the topic is the future of humanity, and others couldn't care less. Thats a fact you will have to accept at some point.
- kadoban 1y ago> And give rise to others as it has done so all along. Too bad for the billions who are suddenly in the wrong place to survive.
- SlowTao 1y agoThe example I use is this. Falling of a building is harmless, standing on the ground is harmless. It is the transition that matters. I'm sure we can survive fairly reasonably in whatever climate we end up with in a few hundred/thousand years, but the gap in between is a really doozy. The stories and myths about the selfish people of our times will go on for millennia. It is the book series 'Carbon Ideologies' by William T Volleman, the opening few pages are written to those that read them in a few hundred years. Those that read these today are already convinced, those in the future will want answers. All he does is use examples of how we live to point out that we are not inherently evil, just looking out for our more immediate needs.
- hnarn 1y ago> The stories and myths about the selfish people of our times will go on for millennia. Except there is nothing inherently more selfish about ”people” today than at any point in history. If anything, it might change humanity’s view of itself, and its capability to collectively handle major threats.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y agoI'm sure they'll be as forgiving as we are.
- mdiesel 1y agoThere are a couple of key differences that I think could lead to a shift towards selfishness. With the size of populations, there's less feeling of individual impact. If I don't do "my bit" then it's such a miniscule negative to society as a whole, it won't really matter. We have a relatively new economic principle that if everyone acts in their own best interests, that will also further society's interests. That means there's no moral choice between what benefits me and what benefits others, I can always pick what benefits me. These aren't universal, but are two simple reasons why selfishness could be more prevalent now than a lot of history.
- cyberlimerence 1y agoNext up, AMOC collapse.
- SlowTao 1y agoThere was a report that said the AMOC could collapse between 2025 and 2075. That said the 2025 mark was said to be very unlikely, I hope it still is...
- burnt-resistor 1y ago42-76% by 2050 (preprint) https://youtu.be/-ArfmobaCyc https://youtu.be/-ArfmobaCyc https://arxiv.org/html/2406.11738v1#bib.bib12 https://arxiv.org/html/2406.11738v1#bib.bib12
- csomar 1y agoCan someone explain in simple terms what this means? Like what is happening (like am 5) and what are the consequences of this.
- Workaccount2 1y agoThe consequences of the reversal of the current or the consequences of CO2 in the atmosphere doubling?
- notfed 1y agoYes
- ashoeafoot 1y agoYou get unreliable weather patterns . monsoon in dry places, and monsoon dependent countries falling dry.. And thus unreliable investment, a house or factory might be flood prone in a dessert valley, a dam with power stations might fail to provide. So you have uninsureable riches, that might aswell no longer be there.
- signalToNose 1y agoAnd as a consequence, massive migration from inhabitable regions. Hard to imagine the implication when there are billions of people affected
- jonathanstrange 1y agoNot important, but I want to briefly point out as a Grammar Nazi that you mean uninhabitable regions. Inhabitable and habitable mean the same and their opposites are uninhabitable and not habitable. This is one of those bizarre oddities of the English language.
- ashoeafoot 1y agowould ainhabable or antiinhabable be correct ?
- ars 1y agoIf this is the very first time this part of the ocean has ever been imaged/studied, how do we know that this is unusual and not something that happens periodically?
- bronco21016 1y agoExactly the same thought I had while reading the article. They mention multiple times this is the first time ever that they’ve been able to measure anything in this area. My take on science is that we need to measure for some period of time before we jump to conclusions about the normal state of affairs. This isn’t to argue against climate change, but I think journalism like this only fuels skeptics.
- truculent 1y agoIsn't the issue that historical data is consistent with the overturning model, which adds weight to our assumption that it has previously been stable. These new measurements (and observations?) are consistent with the overturning circulation weakening. I agree with you in principle - my impression (perhaps wrong - not an expert) was that there are additional data points supporting the idea of a consistent status quo.
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- UberFly 1y agoI'll bet that while measuring CO₂, the BEC and the ICM-CSIC will verify that the SMOC and the AMOC in the North Atlantic is not just weakening, but has reversed. This would be an interesting discovery. Truly.
- macartain 1y agoAnd how much will you bet?
- abhijat 1y agoThe article says that deep water is warmer, afaik deep water is colder and surface water is hotter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upwelling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upwelling)? A 2023 study https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230330102327.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230330102327.h... observed slowdown in Antarctic overturning, in which cold water sinks down at the south pole and then spreads north in the deeper parts of the ocean. The slowing of this process would cause deep ocean water to become warmer. edit: the publication linked in the article https://www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10.1073/pnas.2500440122 https://www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10.1073/pnas.2500440122 makes this a bit clearer: "In the polar Southern Ocean, cold, fresh surface waters overlay warmer, saltier deep waters (Fig. 2A). During winter, surface cooling and sea ice formation reduce stratification, allowing vertical mixing to transport heat upward, either melting sea ice from below or limiting its growth (8). However, decades of surface freshening strengthened stratification, trapping subsurface heat at depth, sustaining expanded sea ice coverage (7, 9) and limiting deep convection along with open-ocean polynyas (10). Here, we show that since 2015, these conditions have reversed: Surface salinity in the polar Southern Ocean has increased, upper-ocean stratification has weakened, sea ice has reached multiple record lows, and open-ocean polynyas have reemerged."
- jteg6886 1y agoAlso this link explains the warmer deep water: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumpolar_deep_water https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumpolar_deep_water
- user070223 1y agoIn general at high enough depth the ocean temperature is constant[0]. At high latitude like the southern ocean it's constant at whatever depth. I think the surface ambient temperature is below(cooler) the temperature where the water density is the highest around 4 degrees for pure water(water has negative thermal expansion which causes it to expand and float!), for southern ocean salinity is between 33-34 and maximum density is below 0[1] but still ambient might be lower which means the colder water is lighter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ThermoclineSeasonDepth.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ThermoclineSeasonDepth.pn... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T-S_diagram.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T-S_diagram.pdf
- taylorlapeyre 1y agoThe deep-ocean vent south of Antarctica is real but small, on the order of a few-tenths Pg C yr⁻¹. The claim that it could double atmospheric CO₂ exaggerates the flux by three orders of magnitude relative to observed values and known physical limits. The most optimistic estimate of deep-water outgassing south of 60 ° S is 0.36 Pg C yr⁻¹. Even if that rate tripled and persisted unabated, it would take more than 800 years to add 895 Pg C (which would be what it would require to justify the press release’s claims of “doubling”) What the salinity reversal can do is: - Expose ice shelves to warmer subsurface water, accelerating sea-level rise. - Reduce the Southern Ocean’s role as a sink by a few tenths Pg C yr⁻¹, nudging the global ocean sink (~2.7 Pg C yr⁻¹) downward. - Perturb atmospheric circulation patterns, with knock-on effects for the Atlantic overturning (but those links remain speculative).
- ImaCake 1y agoThanks for the clarification, these click-bait titles pop up again and again around very interesting technical climate science, causing not only pointless panic but allowing denialists to drive doubt by pointing out the BS. Its doubly frustrating because these studies invariably indicate that climate change is happening, getting worse, and triggering feedback loops that amplify CO2.
- eastbound 1y ago[flagged]
- bryanrasmussen 1y agoYour personal test for someone making a technical claim on one matter is to ask them a technical question on another thing that they have not claimed any expertise in. If they guess and guess wrong you ignore their claims on the thing they supposedly know something about because.. points I guess. Hey, I do a lot of crazy stuff myself, so not exactly blaming you but I don't think your "flooding == really sad" claim holds up here, because of the crazy.
- IAmGraydon 1y agoBe warned, this article is misleading. The actual scientific paper shows a salinity‑driven weakening of stratification that likely allows more subsurface heat to reach the surface and melt sea ice. The article describes this as a complete overturning‑circulation reversal with dire carbon release consequences. These are claims that the paper itself does not make or substantiate. The paper actually does not use the words carbon or CO2 even once. The authors of the article took such liberties with this that I really believe this should be considered disinformation.
- robk 1y agoIt doesn't reflect their existing views so many will pile on with glee sadly.
- panstromek 1y agoGlad I'm not the only one to see the disconnect here. I thought I'm somehow missing rest of the paper text, it really doesn't say all that much compared to the article interpretation.
- ffwd 1y agoNo, the new algorithms used to be determine this was created by ICM-CSIC who are also the publishers of this article. Also the authors of the paper is involved with the article, there is for example this quote: “We are witnessing a true reversal of ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere—something we’ve never seen before,” explains Antonio Turiel, ICM-CSIC researcher and co-author of the study.
- IAmGraydon 1y ago>No, the new algorithms used to be determine this was created by ICM-CSIC who are also the publishers of this article. Where does it say this? Also, it doesn’t matter what the co- author said, the study that he took part in literally does not support the statement.
- zmmmmm 1y agoThe article is about the overall findings and their implications, not just the specific paper istelf. Scientists will always be conservative in what they publish, scoping it down to the minimum interpretation that is supported by their evidence. The article directly interviews authors of the study and quotes them, eg: > We are witnessing a true reversal of ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere—something we’ve never seen before,” explains Antonio Turiel, ICM-CSIC researcher and co-author of the study. If you incorporate these statements it seems quite reasonable to me. You can argue with the author of the study saying that but I can't see an issue with an article reporting that they did, if that's what actually happened.
- anilakar 1y ago> surface water is being replaced by deep water masses rising to the surface, bringing with them heat and carbon dioxide (CO₂) that had been trapped for centuries. True or not, this will be yet another asset in the the climate change deniers' toolbox.
- SwtCyber 1y agoIf deep water is now rising and releasing centuries of stored CO2, we're talking about a major shift in Earth's climate plumbing. Also wild that this only became visible thanks to a novel satellite processor
- geysersam 1y agoWhy would the deep water have more dissolved CO2 than the surface water?
- bo0tzz 1y agoThe high pressure at depth allows it to dissolve more gas.
- justonceokay 1y agoExactly the same reason you coke can out-gasses when you open it
- pfdietz 1y agoThe Biological Pump. Organic matter created at the surface (by photoplankton and by consumers) falls into the deep ocean, where other biological processes oxidize it back to CO2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_pump
- mattbrewsbytes 1y agoThe fact that this was discovered by a novel satellite processor makes an uneducated person like me on this topic wonder if this has happened before and us humans just didn't have any way of observing it. We've only had satellites for a few decades and earth and its oceans have been here a while longer than that.
- hedora 1y agoIt’s happened before, and we’ve observed it indirectly. The last time the northern Atlantic current shut down, parts of Western Europe were covered in glaciers. The climate models are extremely accurate within certain ranges. When you get outside those ranges, previously unknown tipping points like this will start to manifest themselves. It’s the difference between predicting what a piece of precision machinery will do when it’s new vs after it’s been dropped and hit with a sledgehammer. This is why the 1.5C global warming goal was irresponsibly high. We’ll cross it in ~ 18 months, so expect more terrible news like this article’s findings as we get further and further away from well-understood climatology.
- Ringz 1y agoMost climate research studies provide a range from optimistic to pessimistic outlooks on climate impacts. It would be interesting to know how the studies from the last 30 years have fared. I have the feeling that rather the pessimistic estimates have come to pass.
- exe34 1y agohttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-science-predictions-prove-too-conservative/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-science-p... https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-uns-devastating-climate-change-report-was-too-optimistic/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-uns-devastating-climate-... Old articles. Nowadays I'd say there's an even stronger current against "doomerism", which acts as a force suppressing sufficiently bad news. Don't look up!
- BlueTemplar 1y agoIgnoring the possibility of tipping points with self-reinforcing feedbacks is like playing with matches near a gas station. Of course the doomers have been wrong sometimes, here predicting an ice-free Arctic in September 2015 : https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/09/is-the-north-pole-now-ice-free.html https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/09/is-the-north-pole-n... But I will still side with their painstaking lists of things that could go wrong, than with the insane mainstream, which mostly acts like they care first and foremost about increasing our supply of matches. See also : https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/post-index/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/post-index/
- hdb385 1y agoYou can REEEE-search away. The facts show that we are in a general period of cooling, with a possible move North soon. The rEcEnT sCiEnCe tends to show a spike in correlation with fossil fuel usage. But these studies cant be trusted as they are created by the same people who have a bridge to sell us. Science studies in the 70s, 80s and some of the 90's showed the opposite. You have to acknowledge this and weight it all up. Yeah, you're going to get mad but that isn't important.
- n2fole00 1y agoI didn't know much about the Southern Ocean. For a quick update, YouTube has some good info https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VMSF28J9H4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VMSF28J9H4
- lancewiggs 1y agoLook at London. Draw a line west. Compare climates. Now do the same for New York and go East. Ocean currents are what keeps London warm and NYC cool. So this is a huge deal. I’ve been down to the Southern Ocean, lectured all the way by scientists. North of the Antarctic is the only place on earth where the sea can rotate completely around the world without hitting a land mass, and it is deemed the engine of the world’s oceans. Those oceans are what have absorbed most of the excess CO2 that we’ve emitted, and a lot captured has been buried in deep ocean. But the ocean warms, and can capture less CO2, and bad days are ahead. This news signals not just a slowing in that absorption for an area, which not just sends more CO2 into the atmosphere, but has more terrifyingly unknown downstream implications for other ocean streams.
- pfdietz 1y agoHow do ocean currents keep NYC cool? I thought it was perturbation of atmospheric circulation by the Rocky Mountains, which causes higher latitude air to sweep down over eastern North America. For that matter, the subsequent northward return of the air also causes some warming in Europe, not just warming from the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream actually warms the eastern US, btw. https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-source-of-europes-mild-climate https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-source-of-euro...
- moffkalast 1y agoWe thought the currents would run AMOC but got a SMOCdown instead? Well as long as we keep pretending that the most conservative of the already downplayed IPCC estimates is the real trajectory we'll keep getting surprised over and over. It's not really a coincidence that most climate scientists are depressed.
- dang 1y ago[stub for offtopicness]
- scottgg 1y ago> In the long term, this process could double current atmospheric CO₂ concentrations by releasing carbon that has been stored in the deep ocean for centuries—potentially with catastrophic consequences for the global climate. Well, fuck
- troyvit 1y agoYah I came here for some good news. Whoops.
- jes5199 1y agoi’d really prefer a timeline more specific than “in the long term”
- fzeroracer 1y agoWell, part of the problem is that so much of what's going on is unprecedented, unknown and undetectable. We're trying to plot an estimate for an entire planets climate system and it's hard enough to get even local predictions correct. But what we can rationalize about is that our current effects on the climate are already having dire effects, worsening disasters and increasing extremes. The bug windshield phenomenon is one example of a potential downstream shift. By the time we have a more concrete timeline the odds are that it'll already be here and far too late.
- FjordWarden 1y agoOk this is worrisome news, but from what I could gather from the article this a novel technique with no historic data. Why can't this be something that the Southern Ocean does?
- BlueTemplar 1y agoI presume we did have historic data before, from on-site probing, it was just much more sparse ?
- FjordWarden 1y agoNot clear from the article but a reasonable presumption for sure.
- vertnerd 1y agoThis statement in the article is a real head-scratcher: > Until now, the Southern Ocean region was virtually inaccessible to satellites due to its low temperatures and the complex, ever-changing dynamics of sea ice. I hate to cast doubt on the veracity of such an interesting story, but this really makes me wonder whether the entire article is just AI garbage.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoDoesn't need to be AI to be garbage per se, popular science should always be read with some skepticism as it's often a translation (pop sci) of a translation (news publication) of a paper (the actual source). Example, pop sci will show a rendering of a lush green planet with a headline like "EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE FOUND!11", the news release will be something like "Potentially life-supporting planet discovered by xyz", and the actual paper will be something like "measuring device foobar123 noticed a 0.2% decrease in luminance of star aybabtu-1337 at a period of .6 frotz/picoyear indicating this planet probably isn't cooked or frozen but what do we know lol"
- nottorp 1y agoJust watch a pop sci docummentary on something you know about. I was lucky enough to run into "how computers are made" on Discovery when I was fairly young. It was a serious shock and a learning experience.
- pastage 1y agoThat sentence is garbage for sure but if you read it with good intentions from the journalistic view it almost makes sense. It is about remote sensing from satellites, not about the satellites themselves. There are lots of interesting edge cases where remote sensing does not work. The problem is usually that it is expensive to get on the ground data to validate models.
- grimborg 1y agoIt's a real danger that what is not immediately easy for non-experts to understand gets flagged with the suspicion of being "AI garbage". If you want to understand the challenges of satellites in the Southern Ocean, there's plenty of info about it online. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/105/12/BAMS-D-24-0254.1.pdf https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/105/12/BAMS-... (I am also non an expert, and I also didn't understand it at first. That's to be expected. The real world is complex and hard to understand.)
- bawana 1y agoIn the novel ‘the three body problem’ , aliens send an ai to corrupt the scientific method so humanity will remain conquerable by the time they arrive. Today our own creation , LLMs and other AI agents, is accomplishing this. I can hardly believe what i read anymore. Two forces are tearing at us. First, the output of ‘science’ is ‘click bait -ified’ for financial survival and AI is amplifying this process. Second, layers of abstraction and commenting on these ‘facts’ further clouds the discussion and prevents actual progress. I feel like the aliens are here and have subverted humanity already. When will the ‘rest of us’ wake up to act instead of just talk?
- telesilla 1y ago[flagged]
- Gud 1y agoSPOILER: It did actually.
- telesilla 1y agoAh. Looks like I completely missed or forgot.. Wikipedia has this in Episode 5 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_Day_(3_Body_Problem) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_Day_(3_Body_Problem... > The avatar details how crippling Earth's scientific advancement will prevent humans from technologically surpassing them before they arrive
- ethbr1 1y agoNot spoiling a 17 year old book isn't a reasonable expectation. Especially since the series continually reaches for increasingly gimmicky "Ah ha, but no one expected ____" deus ex machina to keep its plot moving.
- Gud 1y agoYes it is. You should always preface with a spoiler tag when writing about about a piece of fiction