ocean conditions are changing due to Rapid Global Climate Shift

[souljour2000]

Frosty,

You may be a cantankerous curmudgeon to some of the forum but with that many posts your bound to step on a few toes...noticed your approaching 6000...Either way I just want you to bring back that old avatar...that was classic...not sure about the new one...it's kinda weird honestly..not weird in a good way really..not like the old one was.. the old one with the weird cranky guy with the pipe was truly iconic and you could never hope to have a better one than that...hope you'll bring him back ...Oh btw..just to stay on topic..I think America needs to get on board with the Kyoto protocol or whatever it's called these days...shameful...it will create good-paying jobs...building all the clean energy tech gadgets that is...

[hoytedow]

Yeah, Frosty, where did you find Don Rickles's baby picture?

[souljour2000]

I'm getting off-thread but have we ever voted on who might have the best avatar? Don't want to be-labor the point but I think Frosty's old avatar would have won hands down if we had taken a poll....

[powerabout]

so if the gulf stream slows and stops will Europe freeze over?

[souljour2000]

Originally Posted by powerabout

so if the gulf stream slows and stops will Europe freeze over?

"Freeze over" is a relative term..I do know that the GS is a massive heat pump /heat exchanger...others in here can expound...

[powerabout]

The Thames river in London used to freeze over and I dont think it has done that for a long time.
Trouble is the gulfstream has only been measured for a short time.
so who knows what changed that?

[ImaginaryNumber]

Last week [1 June 2012 ] the science community was shocked by the claim that 42% of the sea-level rise of the past decades is due to groundwater pumping for irrigation purposes. What could this mean for the future – and is it true?

What makes sea-level rise?

[ImaginaryNumber]

Gulf Stream slowdown? May 2005

There has been an overwhelming popular demand for us to weigh in on recent reports in the Times Britain faces big chill as ocean current slows and CNN Changes in Gulf Stream could chill Europe (note the interesting shift in geographical perspective!)...

To be sure, there are some long term trends that are becoming discernable. There is a freshening of the North Atlantic visible since the 1950s. Long continuous records of temperature and salinity at Ocean Weather Station M in the Norwegian Sea indicate that the deep water has also warmed noticeably. However, monitoring networks are now starting to be put in place (Osterhus et al, 2005) and better integrated data will be available in the future. It is important to bear in mind that while the changes being seen are indeed significant given the accuracy of modern oceanography, the magnitude of the changes (a few hundredths of a salinity unit) are very much smaller (maybe two orders of magnitude) than the kinds of changes inferred from the paleo data or seen in climate models. Thus while continued monitoring of this key climatic area is clearly warranted, the imminent chilling of the Europe is a ways off yet.

Atlantic circulation change summary (Jan 2006)

Nature this week has an excellent summary of the state of the science with regards to possible changes in the ocean thermohaline (or meridional) circulation in the Atlantic and its impact on climate...

Everyone quoted is however agreed on one thing: “the notion that [a future change in the themohaline circulation] may trigger a mini ice age is a myth”. The evidence of previous changes for instance at the Younger Dryas or during the 8.2 kyr event is quite strong, and significant coolings were observed particular around the North Atlantic, but even such localised coolings are not predicted to occur if the circulation slows as an effect of global warming.

Ocean Circulation: New evidence (Yes), slowdown (No) (Oct 2006)

...However, the Guardian story, which started “Scientists have uncovered more evidence for a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Britain its relatively balmy climate” was in complete opposition to the actual evidence presented and I wasn’t the only person to notice. How could the reporting be so wrong?...

So why was the Guardian story so wrong? Well, the nature of variability invariably implies that there are periods when the values are above the mean, and periods when it is below the mean. The minimum values appeared to be during a 10 day interval in November 2004 when the inferred deep western boundary current appeared to be very weak indeed. But then it came back. Now, recall that we have never seen this quality of data before and explanations for the variability (deep eddies? waves?) are not yet available. Thus, no-one has any clue whether this is normal or unusual – right now it’s simply an interesting phenomenon. Picking this out of the results is therefore a little perverse. The big story should have been the phenomenal effort that has gone into exploring this important issue, the much improved context for previous measurements and a welcome reassessment of the significance of previous results. It’s a shame the Guardian missed it.

What Drives The Gulf Stream? (Oct 2006)

...But if this deep circulation doesn’t derive its energy from density contrasts, where does it get the energy from? Most of the energy in the oceans is derived from two sources, the winds and the tides. Both of these forces generate small scale turbulence and internal waves which cause mixing of ocean waters. It is this mixing which energetically fuels the deep ocean circulation.

Since the winds will continue to blow and the Earth continue to turn, does this mean that there can’t be any changes to the MOC [Meridional Overturning Circulation]? Emphatically no. The circulation may well derive it’s energy from the winds and tides, but it is heavily steered by density contrasts and the stratification of the ocean (witness the difference between the North Pacific and the North Atlantic). Changes in that modulation can have profound effects on the currents, and in particular, additions of fresh water from massive lake drainages (i.e. the 8.2 kyr event) or ice sheet collapses (the Heinrich events) most likely caused severe slowdowns or shutdowns of the MOC in the past. Wunsch is a little sceptical of this research (he calls fresh water the ‘deus ex machina’ of climate change), but in this he is probably mistaken – for instance, there is enough information from the 8.2 kyr event to reasonably attribute it to the drainage of Lake Agassiz into Hudson Bay.

Thus while density changes don’t ‘drive’ the circulation (in an energetic sense) they can ‘drive’ (in a modulating sense) changes in that circulation. If this seems complicated, think of the example of greenhouse gases – they don’t drive the climate in an energetic sense (the sun does), but they can drive changes in the climate (by modulating radiation flow in the atmosphere).

That isn’t to say that a future MOC shutdown is either likely or imminent, but see our previous posts for reasons to be wary of drawing conclusions from current observational data...

[Yobarnacle]

Originally Posted by ImaginaryNumber

What makes sea-level rise?

What makes sealevel rise and rivers change their courses and climate average temperatures rise and fall, and some winters colder and floods and droughts, and earthquakes and volcanos?
Nature.
Scientists are only people. The WANT to know. The have hypothesis about how things work, but they don't KNOW how things work in nature.
One thing for certain is, if they come up with a SIMPLE explanation to explain phenomenae, it's bound to be wrong or at least only a very tiny bit of the explanation.
Because nature isn't simple.
That's my MAIN rejection of CO2 causes global warming. TOO simple to be valid.

[powerabout]

The sea looks like it rises when the land subsides or is eroded.
After the earthquake in Indonesia that made the infamous tsunami some islands went up 6' and some went down
I guess the GW people live on one and the AGW live on the other and both have proof of their postion

[ImaginaryNumber]

Originally Posted by Yobarnacle

What makes sealevel rise and rivers change their courses and climate average temperatures rise and fall, and some winters colder and floods and droughts, and earthquakes and volcanos?
Nature.
Scientists are only people. The WANT to know. The have hypothesis about how things work, but they don't KNOW how things work in nature.
One thing for certain is, if they come up with a SIMPLE explanation to explain phenomenae, it's bound to be wrong or at least only a very tiny bit of the explanation.
Because nature isn't simple.
That's my MAIN rejection of CO2 causes global warming. TOO simple to be valid.

Weather is extremely complex. Supercomputers are used to model it. No one is pretending that global warming is simple. The only reason that the comments here appear to be simple is because if the reams of complex data and analysis were presented on this forum everyone (including me) would choke on it. So what is presented for public consumption are the simple, dumbed-down conclusions. If you want the full story, it is certainly available -- if you have the mental acuity to understand it. But please don't make the argument that scientists are presenting a simple solution to a complex problem.

[Yobarnacle]

Originally Posted by souljour2000

Frosty,

You may be a cantankerous curmudgeon to some of the forum but with that many posts your bound to step on a few toes...noticed your approaching 6000...Either way I just want you to bring back that old avatar...that was classic...not sure about the new one...it's kinda weird honestly..not weird in a good way really..not like the old one was.. the old one with the weird cranky guy with the pipe was truly iconic and you could never hope to have a better one than that...hope you'll bring him back ...Oh btw..just to stay on topic..I think America needs to get on board with the Kyoto protocol or whatever it's called these days...shameful...it will create good-paying jobs...building all the clean energy tech gadgets that is...

You should read and understand he Kyoto protocol before you endorse it!
The reason the US hasn't signed any of these protocols, is because they would HURT the US economy.

[ImaginaryNumber]

Originally Posted by Yobarnacle

You should read and understand he Kyoto protocol before you endorse it!
The reason the US hasn't signed any of these protocols, is because they would HURT the US economy.

As will AGW...

Are you short-sighted or far-sighted?

Carbon Tax - A Small Price for a Large Benefit

FORECASTS involving climate change are highly uncertain, denialists assert — a point that climate researchers themselves readily concede. The denialists view the uncertainty as strengthening their case for inaction, yet a careful weighing of the relevant costs and benefits supports taking exactly the opposite course…

Scientists say that even the 3.6-degree increase would spell widespread loss of life, so it’s hardly alarmist to view the risk of inaction as frightening.

In contrast, the risk of taking action should frighten no one. Essentially, the risk is that if current estimates turn out to be wildly pessimistic, the money spent to curb greenhouse gases wouldn’t have been needed to save the planet. And yet that money would still have prevented substantial damage. (The M.I.T. model estimates a zero probability of the temperature rising by less than 3.6 degrees by 2100.)…

This figure [a carbon tax of $80 per metric ton] was determined, however, before the arrival of more pessimistic estimates on the pace of global warming. So let’s assume a tax of $300 a ton, just to be safe.

Under such a tax, the prices of goods would rise in proportion to their carbon footprints — in the case of gasoline, for example, by roughly $2.60 a gallon…

Even from the existing menu of vehicles, a family could trade in its Ford Explorer, getting 15 miles per gallon, for a 32-m.p.g. Ford Focus wagon, thereby escaping the effect of higher gasoline prices. Europeans, many of whom already pay $4 a gallon more than Americans do for gasoline, have adapted to their higher prices with little difficulty.

In short, the cost of preventing catastrophic climate change is astonishingly small, and it involves just a few simple changes in behavior…

People tend to have strong emotions about topics like food and sex, and to create their own moral rules around these emotions, he says. “Moral emotions are the brain’s call to action,” he wrote. “If climate change were caused by gay sex, or by the practice of eating kittens, millions of protesters would be massing in the streets.”

But the human brain is remarkably flexible. Emotions matter, but so does logic. Even though we did not evolve under conditions that predisposed us to become indignant about climate change, we can learn to take such risks more seriously. But that won’t happen without better political leadership…

Most people would pay a substantial share of their wealth — much more, certainly, than the modest cost of a carbon tax — to avoid having someone pull the trigger on a gun pointed at their head with one bullet and nine empty chambers. Yet that’s the kind of risk that some people think we should take.

[Yobarnacle]

Originally Posted by ImaginaryNumber

Weather is extremely complex. Supercomputers are used to model it. But please don't make the argument that scientists are presenting a simple solution to a complex problem.

I have studied the literature.
Also the climate models algorithyms were simplified down to fit on a laptop.
Hansen of Nasa said his laptop model version was superior to the mainframe model. Gives more 'consistent' results.
It's not the scientists screaming CO2.
It's the ecology political activists called AGW alarmists preaching panic. Some few happen to be scientists, like Hanson.

[ImaginaryNumber]

Originally Posted by Yobarnacle

I have studied the literature.
Also the climate models algorithyms were simplified down to fit on a laptop.
Hansen of Nasa said his laptop model version was superior to the mainframe model. Gives more 'consistent' results.
It's not the scientists screaming CO2.
It's the ecology political activists called AGW alarmists preaching panic. Some few happen to be scientists, like Hanson.

You either have not studied the literature or, through perversity, you consistently misrepresent the consensus view of climate scientists.