New Discoveries Improve Climate Models
Underwater Ridges Impact Ocean’s Flow of Warm Water
New discoveries on how underwater ridges impact the ocean’s circulation system will help improve climate projections.
An underwater ridge can trap the flow of cold, dense water at the bottom of the ocean. Without the ridge, deepwater can flow freely and speed up the ocean circulation pattern, which generally increases the flow of warm surface water.
Warm water on the ocean’s surface makes the formation of sea ice difficult. With less ice present to reflect the sun, surface water will absorb more sunlight and continue to warm.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists looked back 3 million years, to the mid-Pliocene warm period, and studied the influence of the North Atlantic Ocean’s Greenland-Scotland Ridge on surface water temperature.
“Sea-surface temperatures in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans were much warmer during the mid-Pliocene warm period than they are today, but climate models so far have been unable to fully understand and account for the cause of this large scale of warming,” said USGS scientist Marci Robinson. “Our research suggests that a lower height of the Greenland-Scotland Ridge during this geologic age was a contributor to the increase of poleward heat transport.”
“This is the first time the impact of a North Atlantic underwater ridge on the ocean circulation system was tested in a mid-Pliocene experiment,” said Robinson. “Understanding this process allows for more accurate predictions of factors such as ocean temperature and ice volume changes.”
Research was conducted on the mid-Pliocene because it is the most recent interval in the earth’s history in which global temperatures reached and remained at levels similar to those projected for the 21st century by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Therefore, it may be one of the closest analogs in helping to understand the earth’s current and future conditions.
The article was published in the journal, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, and can be viewed online. Any journalists who are not registered with this journal and cannot view this article can contact us to have a copy emailed to them.
This research contributes to the scientific foundation needed to make sound planning decisions in response to changes in climate and land use. To learn more, visit the Climate and Land Use Change website.
The USGS led this research through the Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping group. The primary collaborators in this research are the University of Leeds, University of Bristol and the British Geological Survey. More information about PRISM research is available online.
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it is certainly possible that the ocean ridge could do this. The ocean currents drive climate.
When the Drake passage started opening between South America and Antarctica 41 million years ago the Southern Ocean Current started to form. When the passage opened fully 34 million years ago, Antarctica froze over because the warm currents no longer reached Antarctica.
Geography and the sun cause all real climate change. If one of those change, so does climate.
Of course the USGS study also indicates that the ridge will continue to prevent a warm Arctic.
“Research was conducted on the mid-Pliocene because it is the most recent interval in the earth’s history in which global temperatures reached and remained at levels similar to those projected for the 21st century by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
That kinda puts a wooden stake through the heart of “unprecedented,” eh?
I don’t want to hear it any more until something really is unprecedented.
The US Navy has been mapping the ocean floors since they had nuclear submarines(1950’s), and probably before. They also know about the deep water currents. perhaps the USGS could talk to them and save a lot of Tax-money.
I love “..scientists looked back 3M years”.
Whence cometh the incredible conceit of these guys (and their modeller colleagues) that they think that they actually KNOW what was going on 3M years ago.
In any case, their climate colleagues don’t know from one month to the next what the temperatures were even 5, 10 or 50 years ago (when we had thermometers) – they have to keep adjusting them…. With which particular date baseline temperature set are comparisons made?
“The Middle Pliocene, which itself contains episodic climate fluctuations, takes place at the transition from relatively warm stable global climate conditions to the significant global cooling of the Pleistocene, just before the initiation of the late Plio-Pleistocene Northern Hemisphere major glaciations, approximately 2.7 million years ago (Leroy et al., 1998; Zachos et al., 2001; St. John and Krissek, 2002). The causes of the Mid-Pliocene optimum remain uncertain.”
High resolution climate and vegetation simulations of the Mid-Pliocene, a model-data comparison over western Europe and the Mediterranean region
A. Jost et al 2009 European Geosciences Union
If we don’t know what happened then but we do know it was much warmer, how are we certain that in several hundred years we will be in the same position?
Muppets.
Intersting study however, you can clearly detect these guys can smell where the money is.
Sounds very similar to the discovery that tall mountains effected weather patterns. Hopefully NOAA is sharing results of underwater volcanic activity too.. even though they admit they have only a small fraction of the undersea volcanoes mapped
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/about.html
A better headline would be “New Discoveries add yet another set of parameters to complicate climate models even further.”
I know a man who always completes a sentence with, “it’s God’s will”. Why do so many scientists now complete their papers with, “…because of man-made climate change”?
As far as the study of climate goes: Epistemology = Mendacious Charlatans².
Einstein wouldn’t mind, after all he did say: “…no sooner has the epistemologist, who is seeking a clear system, fought his way through to such a system, than he is inclined to interpret the thought-content of science in the sense of his system and to reject whatever does not fit into his system.”
Anthony,
Where in there models is the vast amount of precipitation that is occurring?
John Kehr says: February 4, 2011 at 2:15 am
“it is certainly possible that the ocean ridge could do this. The ocean currents drive climate.” and weather (wind) drives the ocean currents!!!
One big gripe I have with this map is that it shows the “Feroe bank overflow” as being almost one and the same with the North Atlantic drift. The North Atlantic drift is part of a circulatory current in the Atlantic of which only a very small fraction goes up beyond the Shetland-Iceland line.
It really annoys me that WUWT should present a picture perpetuating the myth that “turning of the gulf stream will turn the UK in a deep freeze”.
1. The Gulf stream isn’t the North Atlantic drift**
2. The North Atlantic drift isn’t the Arctic current**
3a. The Arctic current is at risk from melting ice – but as it is a fraction of the heat of the North Atlantic drift, the bulk of the heat conveyer in the North Atlantic is totally unaffected by any risk to the Arctic Current (here labelled Faroe-bank overflow)
4. AND THERE CERTAINLY WILL NEVER BE A TIME THE UK IS THE SAME TEMPERATURE AS THE WEST COAST OF THE ATLANTIC AT THE SAME LATITUDE (Screaming fit over) … because the reason we are warmer is because of the way the earth rotates and so the way the currents in the North Atlantic rotate … you will find exactly the same difference in East-West temperatures of the Pacific. The two will never be the same till the Earth stops rotating!
5. I find it odd that people are only just starting to talk about banks preventing ocean currents. Cold water sinks – like land-surface water it tends to the lowest levels and so can’t get over a ridge. So anything like a new volcano appearing up from the ocean ridge in the Atlantic is going to affect the flow of currents. And the underwater topology around Iceland is constantly changing. Remember that (relatively speaking) some volcanoes can appear quickly and disappear just as quickly. (e.g. Jólnir). So next time we hear “the Gulf stream has switched off in the past” … ask whether changes in underwater landscape may be the reason!
3b. The effect of the Arctic ocean is to destort the shape of the Atlantic drift circulatory current and this “kink” brings more heat further up the West coast of the UK. The current will be there irrespective of melting ice, but the path of that current will change. In addition, whilst the Arctic current is very small compared to the North Atlantic drift, it does cause warm water to get past the Shetland-Iceland gap (which it wouldn’t normally with simple Atlantic circulation). This obviously has a significant effect in the Iceland-Norway-Shetland area. But all these stupid pictures of the Thames freezing are straight out of Goebbels book of propaganda.
Oh for goodness sake stop firkin about with this nonsense and build some properly sited climate monitoring stations that sceptics and Team AGW can both agree on.
@pkatt
Not sure why it’s a small fraction since the ocean ridges are volcanic! – very extensive, continually active and relatively well mapped.
It may not be relevant to Marci Robinson’s ‘mid-Pliocene experiment’ (surely he means model!), but can anyone point me to figures / references for global ridge volcanic activity and emissions?
“This is the first time the impact of a North Atlantic underwater ridge on the ocean circulation system was tested in a mid-Pliocene experiment,” said Robinson.
Have they got a time machine over at the USGS?
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
‘“Sea-surface temperatures in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans were much warmer during the mid-Pliocene warm period than they are today, but climate models so far have been unable to fully understand and account for the cause of this large scale of warming,” said USGS scientist [name omitted to prevent terminal embarrassment].’
You know I hate to be critical but I have to ask “Do these people even attend college?” Apparently, this scientist not only talks to her computer and treats it as a colleague but uses it as the main source of her understanding of her science. Until now, the Warmista presented critics with only the elementary and predictable error of confusing their computers with the reality studied. But this scientist goes much further and confuses her computer with her own mind. Dear Scientist, no digital computer has ever understood anything and none ever will. The same goes for any and all software running on digital computers. How far does this scientist’s confusion go? Does she have “out of body” experiences? Probably.
What a mess
They tell people how accurate their climate computer games are…
…and every week there’s some science claiming to make them better
Geology affecting climate? Oh, the opportunity.
IPCC will need one more chapter.
CRU will need a bigger computer.
NASA will need another satellite.
NSF will need a bigger grant budget.
…and when it’s found, in the end, that the warming is all well within the bounds of natural variability, ….
FOX news will be blamed for reporting it.
So, to save the planet, all we have to do is build some giant trenching machines and create some nice channels in the Scotland-Greenland ridge?
“Warm water on the ocean’s surface makes the formation of sea ice difficult. With less ice present to reflect the sun, surface water will absorb more sunlight and continue to warm”.
Does anyone know of any research that actually measures or even calculates this effect? It is s major plank in the AGW platform and yet, while plausible, it is not entirely obvious to me that it is true.
The problems I have are:
1) In the Arctic, even in summer, the angle of incidence (to the normal) is very high. Although the average albedo of water is low it is very reflective at these large angles in the absence of waves. The pictures I see of the ice, on the other hand, often show a very rough surface which looks like it might actually absorb quite well after multiple partial reflections. Furthermore the minimum ice level (when we see the biggest variance year to year) occurs well after mid summer such that the angle of incidence is larger still. I need to be convinced that the actual annual variation in absorption is that great.
2) When I see pictures of the arctic ice I see numerous water pools sitting on the ice where the surface has melted. How does the albedo of these pools compare with the open sea? Unless the ice pool albedo is significantly higher than the sea albedo the difference in absorption between ice and sea, where the sun is strongest ( that is where pools are forming) might not be so great.
3) Simplistically, if the surface of the Arctic sea in summer is about 10K warmer than the ice, the radiation density upwards from the sea will be about 14% greater. This assumes their albedos are the same. However the exact calculation will depend on the emissivity of these two in the infra red and I do not think this is easy to estimate. But it is possible that, even if there is more sea and that it does indeed absorb more UV it may be radiating more IR and thus may be cancelling out or even reversing the warming effect.
I am not putting any of this forward as a hypothesis, since I have no idea how large these effects are. It is just that when I see something repeated many times and never see any data I begin to get twitchy. Can anyone point me to some good research to put my mind at rest?
Since “Argo deployments began in 2000 and by November 2007 the array is 100% complete. “;
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/
we have literally just beginning to measure Earth’s Thermohaline Circulation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
http://oceanmotion.org/html/impact/conveyor.htm
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/deep_ocean.html
which is caused when “wind-driven surface currents (such as the Gulf Stream) head polewards from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, cooling all the while and eventually sinking at high latitudes (forming North Atlantic Deep Water). This dense water then flows into the ocean basins. While the bulk of it upwells in the Southern Ocean, the oldest waters (with a transit time of around 1600 years) upwell in the North Pacific (Primeau, 2005).”
In addition to wind, temperature and salinity, Earth’s rotational energy influences the Thermohaline Circulation, especially around Antarctica;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conveyor_belt.svg
which is also called the Antarctic Circumpolar Current;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Current
and the Arctic:
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=441&cid=47170&ct=61&article=20727
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/flows.jpg
as well as Earth’s Gravity;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection#Gravitational_or_buoyant_convection
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=205
and the Gravity of the Sun and the Moon during the different phases of the Saros cycle;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saros_cycle
We have 4 years of reasonable quality ocean temperature data on a cycle “with a transit time of around 1600 years”. At present, our capacity to predict changes in the Thermohaline Circulation is essentially nil.
Furthermore, “One of the “pumps” that helps drive the ocean’s global circulation suddenly switched on again last winter for the first time this decade. The finding surprised scientists who had been wondering if global warming was inhibiting the pump and did not foresee any indications that it would turn back on.
The “pump” in question is in the western North Atlantic Ocean, where pools of cold, dense water form in winter and sink beneath less-dense warmer waters. The sinking water feeds into the lower limb of a global system of currents often described as the Great Ocean Conveyor. To replace the down-flowing water, warm surface waters from the tropics are pulled northward along the Conveyor’s upper limb.”
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=54347
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n1/abs/ngeo382.html
Based on our limited understanding of Earth’s climate system, any predictions about Earth’s climate system and the long term trajectory of its average temperature are, at best, educated guesses. We are still learning how to accurately measure Earth’s temperature, much less accurately predict it 50 – 100 years into the future. Those who claim to be able to accurately predict Earth’s average temperature decades into the future, are either deluding themselves, or lying.
Paper pay-walled. May have been interesting to read in the context of:
http://geology.rutgers.edu/~jdwright/JDWWeb/1998/Wright1998.pdf
My Xbox overheated and met the dumpster long ago so not being “any journalist” I really can’t be @rsed. It’ll have to wait till Sony launches “Boundary Condition” for the PS3.
Mike Haseler says:
February 4, 2011 at 3:57 am
Great post, thanks.
And the better they modeled climate without taking this into account, the worse they really are.
Stop the presses
Tall barriers interfere with fluid flow……….
apparantly the researcher has never left the basement long enough to stand in a down town area during a windy day.
Can we have some real scientists in the USGS, please? These pretenders must go. Perhaps the article, in contrast to this “press release(?)” is real science, This is a new discovery that ocean ridges direct ocean currents and, perhaps (therefore?), changed ocean currents affect “global temperature”!?! Have they left these ridges and ocean currents out of their “climate models” to date? Do they imagine that changes in the positions of the plates, closing/opening of oceans, developing ridges/trenches might, just might, affect ocean circulation and, therefore, “global temperature”? Let’s not even talk about underwater volcanoes, which would be part of ridge development. When I eyeball ocean temperatures today, some of the warmest in each hemisphere appear to be over these “ridges”. But then I am not a scientist.
Now that they have identified a ridge as the cause of lower “global temperature”, do they propose a massive tax-payer funded project to build higher ridges so that “global temperatures” do not “reach[ed] and remain[ed] at levels similar to those projected for the 21st century by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” If so, then we can be assured that this project would be part of their “sound planning decisions in response to changes in climate and land use?”
(I will, must, stop. Like other readers I cannot get over my open-mouth astonishment that a so-called scientist has not communicated with those in other sciences, e.g., in geology, who have studied these changes in the Earth. They seem to be able to communicate only with their computers and their computers’ models.)