Guest essay by David Archibald
A few years ago, Professor Humlum, Professor Solheim and myself mounted a meteorological expedition to Svalbard on the island of Spitzbergen, with the attendance of some others. The expedition was armed and sustainable, as reported in WUWT here. In that report, it was noted that “the fall in temperature of the Atlantic Ocean to the west of Norway from the peak in 2006 has been just as fast as the rise from 1990. When will the cooling stop and at what level?” Well, the cooling hasn’t stopped and the rate of temperature fall has steepened up. Meteorologist Paul Dorian has described the implications of this on his site Vencore Weather.
This is the current state of the heat content of the North Atlantic water column from Professor Humlum’s site climate4you. Firstly the location of the area measured:
The heat content updated to December 2015:
From its peak a decade ago, the temperature of this water column has fallen 1.0°C despite the fluctuations in the temperature of the air column above it. The rate of temperature decline has steepened up such that the levels of the 1970s cooling period will be reached by 2018.
Europe has just experienced snowfalls in late April. That is not so unusual. Three years ago there was snow in Europe in late May as far south as northern Spain and Italy. Snow in May will just become more usual to the point of being unremarkable. The North Atlantic’s heat content is no longer getting any help from the Sun with the F10.7 flux spending more time below 100, the breakover between heating and cooling, than above it:
As to the mechanism of the cooling of the North Atlantic water column when the atmosphere above it has yet to follow, perhaps a solar explanation is too simplistic. The scientific premise of the movie The Day After Tomorrow is that global warming will cause a slowing of the Gulf Stream and in turn that will cause severe cooling. Unless we can get up-to-date data on the Gulf Stream that disproves that theory, can it be dismissed out of hand? Counter-intuitive though it might seem, it may be that the cooling of the North Atlantic water column is the only evidence that provides proof of the AGW theory. Perhaps it is time to question some long-held beliefs.
David Archibald is the author of Twilight of Abundance.
NOTE by Anthony: published refutations of “slowing of the Gulf Stream” has been discussed here and also here on WUWT, I see no merit to the claim that it is happening.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The way the heat content graph looks to me, I don’t see it plunging down to the depths of the levels of the 1970s (-.4 GJ/m^2) by 2018. If the decline keeps up its recent pace, I see that happening in late 2019 or early 2020.
So, 18 months later – what’s the diff if the medium term effects turn out to be similar to the 1970s. Meanwhile snow in the southern England freezing in Southern Sweden on the May long week-end.
Surely, must be CAGW.
Why does everyone assume that when they see something dramatic (relatively) that it must be once in a lifetime unique thing that therefore must be related to humans?
We have such limited data. The assumption should be that this is something that happens periodically for some reason. That this is probably not unique and has happened many times before.
We have many unexplained phenomenon in the climate. We do not understand the AMO/PDO 60 year cycle. We do not understand the 1000 year MWP/LIA cycle that goes back at least 5 – 8 thousand years.
When Hansen looked at the Ice ages he couldn’t think of anything other than Co2 to cause the change so he came up with a theory of massive amplification with 5x – 20x positive feedback. As bizarre as that seems it was accepted by a large number of people because they made bad assumptions and had little understanding of most of the climate.
Nature is always more complicated. I realize the best explanation is always the simplest but I believe there is a good chance that the ocean which has 1,000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere has something to do with these variations. There is “weather” in the ocean just like the atmosphere. Heat moves possibly in connection with periodic changes in undersea ridges and variations in gravitational effects. The sun has cycles. These things are assumed static. Biological phenomenon can cause periodic phenomenon but are assumed to be static.
We know that for 30 years during the down cycle of the PDO/AMO the temperature drops or is resistant to rising. It is likely this phenomenon is linked to the release of energy somehow in the latest El Nino. Even though it is an ocean away and the cycles of the AMO and PDO are linked somehow.
I have noticed the last two downcycles (now 3) in the PDO/AMO had a spike (El Nino) almost exactly halfway into the cycles. These spikes were followed by a downward trend which continued for another 15 years. How? I don’t know. Neither does anyone else. Does that mean it won’t happen again? The models are not based on phtsics as much as they protest they are. They are initialized and fudged constantly to match data. The PDO/AMO cycles stand out in the record so plainly it is hard to say that it is less consistent than the computer models.
Before we make these predictions we should understand the basics of our climate much better. Having this raw data may be a key fact to help us figure out what is going on but I seriously doubt we will find it has something to do with CO2.
WUWT has dealt with that previously. link It seems that the data does not support a slowdown in the Gulf Stream.
Most folks do not understand thermodynamics. Heat engines are powered by heat differences not heat per se. Ocean currents are heat engines. Since most heat engines used at room temperature have the source pretty doggone hot to get a reasonable efficiency, most folks think that it is necessary for something to be hot in absolute terms. It only need be “hot” in relative terms. You could get quite a descent efficiency out of an engine that is running at -50 degrees C if it could sink at -250 decrees C.
I read of a study of the sediments between the tip of Florida and Cuba. It appears that the Gulf Stream speeds up when warm and slows down with cooler, which makes sense in terms of water viscosity.
And your point as it relates to the article?
Exactly how much does 1C of temperature change, change the viscosity of water?????
The slowdown is due to less temperature differential and to changes in evaporation rates.
I have always thought that the gulf stream and other such equatorial-polar currents were just a simple consequence of the West to East rotation of the earth.
If the water stood still, the land on the Western edge of the oceans, would be rushing to the East, which would cause a pileup on the Eastern edges of the continents; and that pileup would be greatest at the equator, because of the increased rotational radius, so the pileup would be highest at the equator.
But water as we all know, runs DOWNHILL, so the equatorial pileup is going to split, and run downhill North and South towards the poles.
The acidity, alkalinity, salinity, density, temperature all have nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I have often threatened to reverse the rotation of the earth, so that we would have a warm Northward flowing current alongside the California coast, so all of the salmon would go away, and we would have all those tropical game fishes out in Monterey bay, instead of the boring fishes we now have.
Gulf stream does not depend on salinity or density gradients or anything else.
So long as earth keeps rotating in the same direction, the gulf stream will keep on flowing.
The moon assists in the process, by creating the sea level bulges opposite each other which exaggerates the tropical pileup.
G
Wind also causes ocean currents…..
George,
Forgive my ignorance, i’m just an interested “man in the street”, but all that you have said above just strengthens my skepticism about sea level variances being reported as a few millimetres here and there. I read those reports and think “they can’t be serious”.
You’ve got remember, that prior to warm industrial urban effluent and abundant dams, salmon also ran up many of the East coast rivers.
I look forward to Atlantic salmon runs again on the East coast since the rivers have cleaned up immensely over the last sixty years combined with some dams getting removed and others having fish ladders constructed.
Only changes in the rate of rotation would cause water to move around. Since the earth has been spinning at more or less the same rate for millennia, the water levels equalized millennia ago. The pilling up of water is due entirely to wind.
Even Wikipedia comprehends that “the Gulf Stream proper is a western-intensified current, driven largely by wind stress.” The Coriolis effect of the earth’s rotation simply steers flow in opposite directions in the two hemispheres.
That’s a lot of cooling. Combined with the Pacific heading into La Nina, things should get interesting. The cool mass of the oceans will soon over ride the fleeting warmth of the atmospere.
Plus, look at how cool the waters are going through Drakes Passage. This is a sea change as compared to the last 3 years which saw steady flows of warm anomalies moving through Drakes Passage, and up off of the east coast of South America….http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/primary/waves/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-61.19,-55.11,497
Sea change….I get it!
I don’t think that you do “get it”.
Looking at the graph, the down turn happens since 2005 in the unfiltered data.
Josh Willis was the first to notice a lowering of OHC from 005 to 2006 and was ready to announce it at a conference when he got told by colleges to ‘get with the program’. He found a series of XTBs which were showing slightly cooler reading and, having deleted them from the database, got rid of the troublesome cooling.
The is no record of his being forced to do a similar search for XTBs which may be been warmer. It’s only the cooler data that is questioned and removed.
Maybe Prof. Humlum needs to hire Josh to find ‘erroneous’ cool data in the N. Atl too, and put and end to this contrarian nonsense.
Nonsense. There were two problems with the ocean data, one reading too warm and the other too cool. So your claim that “It’s only the cooler data that is questioned and removed.” is simply not true. See here for the actual story, and next time DO YOUR HOMEWORK so I don’t have to do it for you.
Seriously, folks, do your research before uncapping your electronic pens, because as the poet says,
“It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:”
w.
“the F10.7 flux spending more time below 100, the breakover between heating and cooling…”
Is there a reference for this or is that a more speculative claim? Thanks in advance for anyone who can help me here.
It’s about right. I checked empirically the average sunspot number at which the ocean neither warms nor cools back in 2009, and found it to be around 40SSN. That’s close to 100 on the F10.7 scale. It’s also the long term average SSN since 1750, and it makes sense that the oceans would equilibriate with the solar long term average.
The AMO remained warm through the Gleissberg solar minimum of the late 1800’s. Further north in the Atlantic does not show the same degree of upper ocean cooling:
..If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything !
And if you cherry-pick coordinates for the extratropical North Atlantic, as Professor Humlum has done at climate4you (not the Atlantic as the title of the post states), it will also provide sought-after results. See my comment further down the thread.
Cheers.
Marcus May 2, 2016 at 10:14 am
Dag-nabbit their lying to us again marcus. The Head of the CIA just state a few days ago “No more water boarding”.
michael
I tried to make a water board. But it kept evaporating.
Did the Gulf Stream slow down during the mid-twentieth-century cooling period – when the N. Atlantic also cooled? If not, then that alone indicates that there are other possibilities.
Subpolar gyre, Labrador current, N. Atlantic drift current, Gulf stream, AMOC or an associated feature (I have no idea which) has been slowing down from the early 1900. It can be clearly seen in the first three graphs in this link
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAM.pdf
vukcevic, the graphs you linked do not represent the “Subpolar gyre, Labrador current, N. Atlantic drift current, Gulf stream, AMOC”, etc. You’ve compared sea surface temperatures from a not-listed dataset for not-listed coordinates to other variables whose sources and coordinates are also not listed…with some of the data filtered beyond recognition.
Mr. Tisdale
Thank you for your comment, you are absolutely correct.
N. A. SST the GSN and the CET, all three are well known and data are easily get at.
The Arctic atmospheric pressure I couldn’t find on line, emailed NOAA and got the file attachment back, so quoting email attachment as the data source is not of any help to anyone.
That makes it four out of five variables used, the last one, the volcanic eruptions, took a bit of effort (on my part) to assemble, and since I am in the process of writing a paper, all the sources including the actual data file will be published.
My interpretation is that there is a common constraint on all three variables, defining their multidecadal variability, indicated by a good mutual correlation.
I suggested that either Subpolar gyre, Labrador current, N. Atlantic drift current, Gulf stream, AMOC or an associated feature, I have no idea which since all of the above have some effect on the SST, is slowing down.
From the early 1900 the SST has been showing a progressive time delay, so naturally I consider that one of the above is responsible. Since I don’t know which might be the cause or how it might be affecting the SST delay, I consider it a bit of mystery, hence title “mystery of the north atlantic natural variability”.
I take it that you disagree with most or all of the above, but since you made the effort to look at the link, I thought it was only fair to respond as best as I could at this time.
Some time in past Dr. S. said that I “manufactured data”, it is possible that you meant the same but put it more politely, I do not wish to reassure you otherwise, if you happen to think so.
All the best.
m. vukcevic
vukcevic May 2, 2016 at 2:14 pm
I do not wish to reassure you otherwise, if you happen to think so.
is the above correct???
Did you mean this
I wish to reassure you otherwise, if you happen to think so.
It just did not sound right vuk.
michael
Hi there Mike
Yes, it is correct. I meant it as I wrote it.
I do not come here to tell readers what to think, even less to change their mind, if they have already concluded something or another. I look at data and if I find something of interest I post it, it’s up to readers to take it, leave it, ignore it or dispute it, or even suggest I “made up the data”.
vukcevic, I see you’ve failed to respond to my initial comment. Let me repeat myself:
You’ve compared sea surface temperatures from a not-listed dataset for not-listed coordinates to other variables whose sources and coordinates are also not listed…with some of the data filtered beyond recognition.
Or would you like me to rephrase that as a question?
Mr. Tisdale
Since it appears you didn’t recognise the SST graph (as it happens I often see it, or part of it in your articles) the data source
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.long.mean.data
NOAA for specifics
CET – met office
GSN – SILSO
NOAA – Atmospheric pressure (apply in writing)
For volcanic eruptions see my comment further above, or compile data yourself.
LPF is 6db down at 30 years
Thanks for your interest, obviously you spotted something of concern in there, so it should be since the climate ‘science’ has obtuse views and interpretations of the Natural Variability in the N. Atlantic. The SST and CET as it is shown, are the last in the line.
Now, if of any further interest you should be able to reproduce graphs, opening another window into
“mystery of the north atlantic natural variability” as I call it.
” can it be dismissed out of hand? Counter-intuitive though it might seem, it may be that the cooling of the North Atlantic water column is the only evidence that provides proof of the AGW theory. ”
It can be dismissed out of hand otherwise AGW wins both ways, whether the Arctic melts or the Ice Age resumes. I understand that we are currently in a relatively warm Inter-Glacial that has given us a temporary break from the main story which is an Ice-Age that has been going on for at least the last 500,000 years. Is the Ice-Age officially over and what will stop us going back into one because it won’t be CO2.
More like 2.5 million years for when the latest string of ice ages commenced but the onset is a little smeared. I would call the onset closer to 2.7 but that is just my poor old eyes 😉
Stewart. I paid a bit more attention to the whole ice-age story and looking at the ice-core records it is alarming to see that CO2 does not prevent the end of the last 3 inter-glacials. We haven’t figured out why we are in an Ice-age and what causes the inter-glacials to start and end, but it sure doesn’t look like CO2 is the culprit. A resumption of the ice-age is really something to be feared. Not only the huge loss of habitable and fertile land but the loss of all the continental shelf fishing as sea level drops not by mm but 10s of metres. Lets hope this inter-glacial lasts a lot longer.
You don’t think Milliecycle conjunction reinforced by positive albedo feedback are responsible? (That’s the “conventional wisdom”, of course, though I’ve heard it disputed on occasion.)
Evan Jones May 2, 2016 at 5:29 pm
I’m only an amateur in this but why not. My uneducated guess is that the Ocean and Wind currents must also play a big part as huge amounts of heat and cold air are transferred horizontally around the planet. Here in the UK we get very large temperature ranges for any given sun position in the sky indicating that albedo is not enough but also neither is CO2. So a change in water and wind patterns could change whether the Poles behave like fridges or not? Anyway, from the small amount that I’ve read it seems that the equatorial regions are no cooler during an Ice-Age. You must also be aware of the other theories around interstellar dust clouds passing through the Solar System?
The Quaternary Ice Age has been going on for 2.6 million years. Interestingly, the Artic Ice Cap is itself only 3 million years old. So the Ice Age began right after the Artic cap formed.
What happened is that warm water from the Pacific used to pass between North and South America and feed the Gulf Stream with warmth, which it took up into the Artic. When North and South America met 3 million years ago and the Isthmus of Panama was formed, that warm water was cut off. Now it just sloshes back and forth in the Pacific and we call that the El Nino/ El Nina ENSO.
The Gulf Stream became cooler and the Artic glaciated. Why it is now a cyclical event.. an Ice Age… is still a mystery. Something must be warming up and cooling down the Gulf Stream in a way that corresponds to the glacial/interglacial cycles.
Considering the position of the continents and the current northward drift of all of them, it’s highly probable this Ice Age may last for tens of millions of years like the previous ones.
“The scientific premise of the movie The Day After Tomorrow is that global warming will cause a slowing of the Gulf Stream and in turn that will cause severe cooling. Unless we can get up-to-date data on the Gulf Stream that disproves that theory, can it be dismissed out of hand?”
Their idea is that melt water from the Arctic will slow the overturning, but during a slow AMOC, the Gulf Stream speeds up, and is then warming the North Atlantic and Arctic instead of overturning.
http://www.rapid.ac.uk/
Low MOC events occur during negative NAO/AO episodes, while increased forcing of the climate increases positive NAO/AO, so if anything AGW should speed up the AMOC.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html
Sorry, but that should be “the science fiction premise..” That movie had zero to do with science.
I have to argue that movie didn’t even come up to the standards of Science Fiction, and remains firmly rooted in the science Fantasy genre. If they want a real science fiction movie based on Climate Change, I would suggest using heavyweights in the genre and pick up rights for Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn’s novel ” Fallen Angels. I did find their use of the theatrical theme of the lone-wolf under-dog winning out against the establishment consensus an interesting choice for the warmist movie “The Day After”.
I would suggest using heavyweights in the genre and pick up rights for Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn’s novel ” Fallen Angels. I did find their use of the theatrical theme of the
lone-wolf under-dog winning out
against the establishment consensus an interesting choice for the warmist movie “The Day After”.
__________________________________
No consistent, workable scenario needed for doomsday predictions.
Any however unproven narrative, CAGW as any other, may find followers:
Robert Silverberg ‘Man’s best friend’.
The next question that nobody asks, including the the people who claim global warming causes more snow… where did all that cold come from?
Cold does not “come” from anywhere. Only heat has a source. The universe is cold except when heated.
Of course, lol, somebody turn on the air conditioning. It must be that cold heat. Or an abundance of no source of heat. By any calculation, the amount of latent heat released during a snow storm is huge. Since the heat is retained by the co2, it makes it impossible for it to snow. Children just won’t know what snow is…. tsk, tsk… was it explained to me like that? , let me think… yep. What happened? I’m looking at french winemakers trying to save their vines from an abundance of no source of heat. Who would have thought 20 years after the great predictions of run a way greenhouse house effect, and no we didn’t slow down co2 emissions, that there’d be frost in France in may?
“Where did all the cold come from” is a succinct way of phrasing the imbalance, should be clear to anyone. Warmer air will evaporate more sea water; the humid air then goes somewhere else and can come out as rain. But then it often turns to snow, which requires more heat removed than was originally gained over the ocean. Something’s not in balance. Hot can’t make cold.
The source of most of the coldness in the world is most likely my ex.
Cold does not come from anywhere…my eye!
One day it’s 70 F and the next there is 18 inches of snow on the ground. Just magically appeared. And has been there for the last 4 days… the revised edition of the 2nd law of thermodynamics states that heat comes from cold… I forgot to ask, does that make the cold, colder? I am not kidding I have conversations that are like this. Serious ones.
The next question that nobody asks, including the the people who claim global warming causes more snow… where did all that cold come from?
I think the point has something to do with warming (but not to above freezing) plus increased precip. Probably not invalid, but overhyped, like most of this. And they never seem to point out the negative nature of this particular feedback.
“where did all that cold come from?”..
A question Otzi would have asked as he was skipping through the spring flowers of the Tyrol.
Well he probably wasn’t skipping as someone has shot him with an arrrow.
He sat down among the spring flowers, it snowed and it stayed “snowed” for 5300 years.
That’s climate change for you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ötzi
One of the “authors” of the “Day after Tomorrow” fictional story, was Art Bell who used to be famous for his “Dreamland” popular Sunday evening radio fiction show. George Noori now keeps that show going to the extent it is ongoing.
g
We see similar patterns with SSTs in that same area.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/the-north-atlantic-keeps-getting-colder/
SSTs there are back down to 1980s levels, and the area of the cold blob has been steadily growing recently.
Sounds to me like natural AMO processes
Agreed. This is likely natural variability. Sure, we do have a weak cycle at the same time, but it is likely the change in AMO would have produced this result anyway. I tend to take things from Archibald with a grain of salt. But I do believe we are in for interesting times with PDO and AMO both in cool phases at the same time combined with a weak solar cycle.
Yes, thanks
It looks like atmospheric phenomena to me, too. If warm dry air has been entering the area evaporation rates will increase and the ocean below will cool (the cooling tower phenomena). Bear in mind that if the northward ocean flows at the surface decrease then southward deep water flows must also decrease to conserve mass. The resulting change in heat content is ambiguous. I would suggest surface evaporation as a possible cause.
The heat content graph looks to me like it shows the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. The AMO combined with other multidecadal oscillations (PDO and multiyear-smoothed ENSO) contributed about .2 degree C to the rapid warming from the early 1970s to a few years after 2000. The downswing of these caused the pause, which started a few years after 2000.
AMO is still positive. It has started to drop from its peak.
OK, so warming makes it colder, we have heard this before. So what happens if the Gulf Stream slows down? The Gulf Stream moves heat from the tropics northward to colder areas. Without the Gulf Stream, heat will build up in the Caribbean, Then, either the heat finds another way out, which you would notice, or the Caribbean gets hotter, which you would notice.
Did anybody notice anything?
I love warmist arguments, Warm makes it warmer, Warm makes it colder, Warm is bad.
Beware of Big Climate. Big Climate makes everything More Badder.
AKA the Organized Clime Syndicate.
and every morer badderer.
It is a tad warm here in Fort Myers this morning.
So there is that.m
Good argument.
hey, he asked if anyone noticed anything.
Just tryin’ to be helpful.
Sheesh!
Regardless, if you take a dip in the ocean off NYC before July, you’ll freeze your tosies off.
But, ah, that September warm. I remember sitting astride a surfboard just beyond the breakers (back in the days when there was a hell of a surf) when suddenly the bluefish hit and the mackerel were leaping in sheets all around me. Miraculous sight. Looking back on it, I was lucky not to get my toe bit.
@ur momisugly Evan Jones… grew up in San Francisco. That water is also fairly cold much of the time.
I just wonder if there are any sea surface temperatures for the North Atlantic older than 1950, as it looks like a partial cycle in temperatures on the graph given. The time frame is too short to tell, though.
the gulf stream is not slowing down it’s moving .. instead of passing greenland/the uk it’s [arcing south] and moving over to portugal /africa .some how it’s being blocked is this normal ??
Link, please.
bazzer1959 May 2, 2016 at 10:48 am
You could look yourself
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-26.74,50.18,689
Are those significant cold pockets causing the block?…http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/primary/waves/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-56.60,19.91,497
I’d say yes, they come from the strong, colder then usual Labrador Current, if if does what it did last year it’s about to become more pronounced as the ice retreats towards Summer extents.
There is no explanation I can find other then meltwater, which doesn’t explain why this continues through the winter months….
It seems the scientific community sees N Atlantic ssta as detail rather then a solid subject whose mechanics are worth studying/publishing?
Hello Mr Rider 🙂
hey cid 🙂
i have my own theory and it has to do with the sun and antarctic melts ..but i’m still looking .. if the pacific go’s really cold this year i’m on a winner ..
The warming’s not over until the fat canary sings.
Do you mean the Goracle in a new movie proclaiming AGCooling – Ice Age?
From its peak a decade ago, the temperature of this water column has fallen 1.0°C despite the fluctuations in the temperature of the air column above it. The rate of temperature decline has steepened up such that the levels of the 1970s cooling period will be reached by 2018.
If it continues.
Thank you for the essay. That is worth watching.
The North Atlantic’s heat content is no longer getting any help from the Sun with the F10.7 flux spending more time below 100, the breakover between heating and cooling, than above it:
How solid is the evidence that 100 is the breakover between heating and cooling?
..Wait a minute !! Didn’t Al Gorry Baby say the ENTIRE Earth was a Fireball, and we were all going to burn in the fires of HELL ?
That was one of Rev. Al’s divinity school sermons.
“Three years ago there was snow in Europe in late May as far south as northern Spain and Italy. Snow in May will just become more usual to the point of being unremarkable.”
I hate statements like this, when they are made with no (real) context and no supporting hypothesis / data. It has exactly the same weight as “snowfall is now a thing of the past”. Why does a colder ocean mean more and longer snow? My understanding is that as oceans cool they are less likely to give up moisture, drying the air out.
Anyone who lives in N Europe can tell you there is plenty of moisture in the atmosphere here, we can easily lose a bit!!!
It could end up being a case of energetic merdional flows and rex blocks. For some this would result in late season low elevation snow however the systems bringing it would tend to be moisture starved. So, it may also mean drought of much of Western Europe.
The real truth is…it’s pretty darn complicated.
http://wetter.tv/news/oesterreich/nasser-mittwoch/3.647.911
RAPID has identified a significant slowdown in AMOC from 2004-2014, but the latest data shows that the slowdown has slowed. RAPID does not show a slowdown in the Gulf Stream component of the MOC. The ‘warming causes cooling’ theory is highly speculative and probably more at home in disaster movies than scientific studies.
We know that the AMO is cyclical. We are fairly certain that low solar activity contributes to regional cooling in the North Atlantic. We have both things happening right now. No need to invoke the AGW bogeyman to explain the current precipitous drop in N Atlantic SSTs.
Besides, the ‘warming causes cooling’ hypothesis rests on freshwater hosing which may have been a feature of early Holocene N Atlantic cooling events but it seems less implicated in more recent N Atlantic Cold Events. A paper recently examined hosed vs. unhosed forcing of the AMOC and concluded:
“Here, we take advantage of a global coupled ocean–atmosphere model that exhibits spontaneous, unhosed oscillations in AMOC strength, in order to examine how the global imprint of AMOC variations depends on whether or not it is the result of external freshwater input. The results imply that, to first order, the ocean–ice–atmosphere dynamics associated with an AMOC weakening dominate the global response, regardless of whether or not freshwater input is the cause.”
http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/cp-2015-141/
Has the latest data recovered September 15 been publicly released yet??
Also, the Labrador current has been strong and anomalously cold for some time now and does appear to be interrupting the gulf stream heat transport north east. At this moment in time the SSTA look very similar to this time last year when huge cooling could be seen down the GS.
Personally I feel the existence of a cold strong LC during the winter months discounts meltwater runoff as a single cause, however there does appear to be something of significance happening in this junction?
When the climate changes you will not see it tomorrow, or even the day after that. Frosty fingers of ice won’t pursue you to that library with the magic doors that keep cold out, and wonderful windows that hold heat, and yet let sunlight in.
Bernie May 2, 2016 at 11:12 am
All true Bernie, but we will see it in ski resorts staying open later and later each season. (That is as long as we still have seasons) which means good stock investments If publicly held.
See a silver lining in every snow storm.
Jokes aside, has it clicked with anyone that it has been exactly two hundred years since the year without a summer. And we don’t know for sure what caused it and how it manifested it self on a day to day basis.
These late frosts and snow storms could just be ho-hum typical variations. Or we could be seeing a repeat of two hundred years ago. And no I am not very concerned over a one year blip. The world economy is much more advanced and dispersed to be dangerously effected by a repeat, if it were to occur.
michael
Wavier jet stream tracks with more clouds allowing less sunlight into the oceans.
That will be amplifying the normal cyclicity of the AMO.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/
…Well, from all the comments above, I can only postulate that there are more unknown unknowns than there are known unknowns !! ..IMHO ..
Exactly Marcus! It’s like driving on an unfamiliar road with no map. You can’t just head East and assume you’ll end up East of where you started because the twists and turns are unpredictable. Nobody knows when the temperatures of any part of the Earth are going to start trending in a different direction in the future because of something we don’t understand. Using science to predict the future is more in the realm of metaphysics than science.
Hoyt Clagwell
” You can’t just head East and assume you’ll end up East of where you started because the twists and turns are unpredictable.”
You have obviously never driven through Kansas?:)
Actually Richard, I discovered that principle driving through Connecticut. Kansas would seem to be a bit more predictable. 😛
Nonetheless, I probably wouldn’t choose west.
Marcus May 2, 2016 at 10:58 am, Hoyt Clagwell May 2, 2016 at 11:28 am
Both of you are correct. Another analogy would be following a “snowbird” at the wheel of a geezer-pleaser on a Arizona highway. Nothing more unpredictable- signaling left to go right along with sudden explainable stops. Makes life interesting and keeps one on their toes.
michael
decades of time and effort ,billions spent on research , yet here we are none the wiser.
Sure we are. In a nutshell: The basic premise seems real, but the amount of warming is much smaller than feared (and has actually been shown to be net-beneficial, so far).
That’s where “we” started out, isn’t it? A small effect?
“…but the amount of warming is much smaller than feared…”
Feared by whom? I say it was all a big fat conjob, and am not in the least impressed by those who cant accept the potential that that’s what has been going on . . Stat/math guys might be clever about some things, but detecting con artists does not seem to be one of them . .
Oh, I think these guys actually believe the things they believe.
“Oh, I think these guys actually believe the things they believe.”
Well, you’re not going to get an argument about that from me . . it’s a tautological statement . . But I meant the guys with (our) Big bucks to pour into this “feared” potential, and the Big megaphones to accuse those who aren’t all that afraid, of being crazy, antiscience, dangerous, unpatriotic, etc etc.
When La Nina hit’s, what are the best estimates/range of new past surface temperature adjustments required to keep the cAGW fear narrative alive and bust the new ever longer pause ??
The best estimate is… if it ain’t enough, they will adjust it some more.
They already wore out the elastic. (And the scientific community knows this.)
“The scientific premise of the movie The Day After Tomorrow is that global warming will cause a slowing of the Gulf Stream and in turn that will cause severe cooling. Unless we can get up-to-date data on the Gulf Stream that disproves that theory, can it be dismissed out of hand?
Yes we should, null hypothesis. The cooling happened in the 50s and 70s, the IPCC say only since 1970 humans have had an impact. LIA?
That movie plot is nonsense. Dismiss it out of hand right away as it is not supported by any scientific body of work