The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea.
Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend.
A slow-down – dramatised in the movie The Day After Tomorrow – is projected by some models of climate change.
The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The stream is a key process in the climate of western Europe, bringing heat northwards from the tropics and keeping countries such as the UK 4-6C warmer than they would otherwise be.
It forms part of a larger movement of water, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is itself one component of the global thermohaline system of currents.
Between 2002 and 2009, the team says, there was no trend discernible – just a lot of variability on short timescales.
The satellite record going back to 1993 did suggest a small increase in flow, although the researchers cannot be sure it is significant.
“The changes we’re seeing in overturning strength are probably part of a natural cycle,” said Josh Willis from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.
“The slight increase in overturning since 1993 coincides with a decades-long natural pattern of Atlantic heating and cooling.”
Short measures
The first observations suggesting the circulation was slowing down emerged in 2005, in research from the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC).
Using an array of detectors across the Atlantic and comparing its readings against historical records, scientists suggested the volume of cold water returning southwards could have fallen by as much as 30% in half a century – a significant decline.
The surface water sinks in the Arctic and flows back southwards at the bottom of the ocean, driving the circulation.
However, later observations by the same team showed that the strength of the flow varied hugely on short timescales – from one season to the next, or even shorter.
But they have not found any clear trend since 2004.
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Read the rest of the story at the BBC here
Or feel free to laugh at this movie:
There will always be people in this world that live by “gloom and doom” prophesy.
In the days when the BBC were unappologetic supporters of AGW (it might be nice, given the Law and Ordeer episode with the climategate reference, to track back into the BBC archives to find the earliest reference to climate change in BBC programs, both factual and fictional – it certainly goes back a long way and it wouldn’t surprise me to find references in cotume frama as well) they did allow to slip through the net an article about the Gulf Stream stopping.
Not sure why.
The scare that AGw would cause the gulf stream to stop was being given some prominence then and this report was that a team of scientists had been examining sea shells on the sea floor (couldn’t resist, sorry, but it is a fair description).
The import of their study was that from the shells they were able to infer that the Gulf Stream had stopped several times before.
I think they meant before man arrived on the scene, so not due to AGW.
Somehow I wasn’t sure they had let this through because it showed that the gulf stream can reverse and hence the scare about AGW caused stoppage was possible or whether it meant that Gulf Stream failuree could be a purely natural phenomena.
Tough call and thee usual response would have been to bury the story. Don’t know why they didn’t.
I did a seach and found what I think is the radio show I heard. I was surprised to see it is from 2003 but I think it is the one. Perhaps theere was another though I doubt the Beeb would slip up twice on the same story.
Here is that interesting interview “The Big Chill”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/bigchilltrans.shtml
“NARRATOR: In the search for answers they turned to the sun, our ultimate source of heat. They discovered that the pattern of ice ages matched strange wobbles in the earth’s orbit around the sun. These altered how the sun’s heat shone upon the earth. They allowed the ice to grow and retreat.”
Oops! where’s the AGW?
This story is a couple of weeks old (MeteoGroup). When a previously rare event becomes more commonplace it may be a signal for warming or cooling, or perhaps neither. Coincidences do happen.
‘Also last week a very rare subtropical cyclone formed in the South Atlantic just east of Brazil. This is a highly unusual spot for such storms to develop, and it was one of only six in recorded history in the South Atlantic Basin. However, as recently as 2004 a much stronger cyclone brewed up in the same place and became known as Cyclone Catarina – thought at the time to be a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.’
Prof Walley Broeker is deescribed in the transcript as the “Guru” of climate science, a claim repeated on the university website.
http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/articles/view/2246
In the transcript he basically says what this story says; very preditcable long term trends with dramatic short term events where it is as if a switch has been flipped.
Importantly this is where it is suggested that the Gulf Stream has been switched of on on again in the past.
All natural.
However, it is apparent that Prof Broecker is a leading AGW advocate, which may explain why we were allowed to know this.
So, if these things can happen and have happened, why are we more likely to influence these events than nature?
As long as the earth spins the mountains will stir the atmosphere
and the undersea mountains and the continents will stir the oceans.
Consider the shore lines, the direction the earth spins, and some places
look like a plow pulled through mud.
As lolng as the earth spins, there will be currents.
I see the true believers are still hoping that they can turn the annual variability of the Gulf Stream into yet another fear relic to flog up more belief in AGW.
The important thing is that this was one of the linchpins of the apocalyptic nature of AGW. If CO2 could stop the Gulf Stream, then a disaster would hit northern Europe, etc.
It was always bogus junk, and any reasonable person knew it.
The promoter behind this was mentioned at Andy Revkin’s whitewash of this.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/heat-toting-ocean-currents-chugging-along/
Now Joshua Willis, the con-artist who promoted this baseless fear, is pretending that he has kept up to date with the collapse of his prediction. And of course Revkin does a bit of hand wringing about how wicked denialists will use this latest failure of AGW theory as evidence of failure of AGW theory.
How many false predictions of apocalypse will have to occur before AGW believers serious question of their favorite theory?
Anthony
These links are VERY interesting. Are the scientific station Comandante Ferraz Brazilian, Antarctic Peninsula. You are in Portuguese, but be sure to read!!!
http://antartica.cptec.inpe.br/~rantar/publicacoes/200809_SPA_Setzer_Romao_tempcaiu.pdf
http://antartica.cptec.inpe.br/~rantar/PDF/Queda_Temp_Ferraz.pdf
vukcevic (01:07:27) :We live in an electric universe, sitting on a cathode, surprised why currents originate and neglecting its existence because the church of the settled science denies it.
…and the north pole and the south pole, where the auroras appear:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2010/arch10/100329aurorae.htm
The following is from an artice in the Norwegian newspaper VG – 25.03.1999:
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=49577
This is a Google translation with minor gramatical changes.
– The Gulf Stream has narrowed dramatically
Russian observations of the Norwegian Sea show that the Gulf Streams width is reduced by half since 1960.
The consequences can be dramatic: Among other things, the climate can be affected.
The observations are made over much of this century by the Russian marine research institute Pinro in Murmansk, and are now analyzed by the Norwegian marine scientists.
The reason for the dramatic narrowing the Gulf Stream seems to be that since 1960 it has blown more and more from the west – and the large amount of westerly winds that now blows the Gulf Stream along and pushes it more and more towards the Norwegian coast.
Modified route
This emerges from an article Oceanographers Johan Blindheim and Svein Østerhus in Bergen has developed in collaboration with a Russian colleague. The article will be published in the international marine research journal Deep Sea Research.
The narrow Gulf Stream does not entirely follow the same route as before, when parts of it swung from west off the Norwegian coast.
– Now it goes to a greater degree right into the Arctic Ocean. This has led to the water layer between 200 and 400 meters in the Arctic Ocean has risen by one degree. It is a lot, said Oceanographer Svein Østerhus.
Two years ago, the remarkable Russian measurements were presented for Oceanographer Johan Blindheim.
– When I saw the trend, I decided to do moe research on why the Gulf Stream has narrowed.
Narrows
– Our work includes the fact that we have compared the Russian measurements of the width of the Gulf Stream with pressure differences between the Azores and Iceland. Big difference for many westerly winds, little difference for low westerly winds, “says Blindheim.
– Our measurements show that the Gulf Stream narrows while the pressure difference across the seas rising.
From 1960, the pressure difference between Iceland area and Portuguese Azores doubled 15 times. Air pressure may be set in millibar, and normal pressure is 1013 millibar.
– We had an average difference in air pressure in 1960 on two millibar. At the end of the 80s is the pressure difference in the winter on the 30 millibar. This explains why it is blowing more steadily throughout this sea area. Now we also see that the air amount is significant for the Gulf Stream, or the Atlantic Ocean current, as we call it.
Concerned
In 1960, the width of the Gulf Stream in the Norwegian Sea was approximately 570 kilometres. Up until 1990 the width was reduced to less than half – down to the 270 kilometres.
– I understand that the amount of air leads to a compressed Atlantic Power. But I do not understand why pressure differences have increased, said Oceanographer Johan Blindheim.
The increased flow of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean worries Oceanographers:
– If this continues, it will mean increased melting of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean. If the ice here melts, the Gulf Stream have set in motion a process which further increases the temperature in the Arctic Ocean – because when the sun will come into ply. Today ice stops the solar heat from reaching the Arctic Ocean. Without this ice is the insulation is gone, and we could get major changes, says Oceanographer Svein Østerhus.
In reply to mysearchfortruth:
“But this summer, for reasons unknown, “the Gulf Stream slowed down,” Edwing said, sending water toward the coasts—and sea levels shooting upward.
Adding to the sustained surge, autumn winds from the northeastern Atlantic arrived a few months early, pushing even more water coastward.”
Gee “for reasons unknown” sounds like incredibly robust science, especially compared to the article above. Perhaps you should search for truth somewhere other than the pages of National Geographic.
As the above article clearly states, there can be great variations in the Gulf Stream from ONE SEASON TO THE NEXT, and it is all part of natural variability. I do not see where your National Geographic article contradicts that conclusion in any way whatsoever to be honest.
Global “Warming” or Global “Cooling” isn’t the “Problem”. MONA – Mother Nature – will do her thing, whichever, whenever, however, to whoever, etc. All the screaming and hollering is about the impact on “people”. At Six Billion Plus, people are going to take it in the ear, and the backside, one day, probably sooner than later, and we all know it (don’t we?). In the bell curve of ‘people-types’ there is the vast majority who will adjust to whatever happens and help whoever they can whenever possible, there are also the two extremes of people (the wierdos). Regardless of which way Mona throws the dice, in a way, big climate change makes for big impact on the ‘Carbon Units’ infesting Planet Earth and “THAT’S” the issue; true, for some it’s just an interesting ‘academic’ discussion, they want to know how she’s going to do it, and when, etc. “The Unknown” is sooooo interesting.
Shouldn’t the blue tails of the arrows in the chart read “Heat absorbed from the atmoshere”, rather than “Heat released to the atmosphere”?
“The Day After Tomorrow” was the brainchild of UFO nuts, Whitley Streiber & Art Bell.
Apart from the Gulf Stream not slowing down and picking up a little other research suggests that its warming influence is largely a myth.
——————
If ‘global Warming’ is causing changes to the Gulf Stream… (IF), and this is causing all our lovely snow; what caused all the cold weather in continental Europe and beyond? What has caused the very cold winter in Mongolia, with the deaths of countless numbers of livestock? Why has much of North America had such a cold winter?
Great charts vukcevic (01:07:27)
According to Bill Gray, that “short term variability” is linked to the AMO and Atlantic Hurricane Activity.
“there was no trend discernible – just a lot of variability on short timescales.”
Too bad climate “scientists” aren’t willing to make the same claim for temperatures.
As is usual with such grandiose pronouncements by scientists or press release writers, we know nothing about what the Gulf Stream may have done beyond our very narrow time window under which it’s been studied. Thus, no pronouncements about what may be “normal” or “catastrophic” can be made with any credibility.
I would add that as long as the continents remain in their current (no pun intended, well, maybe a little) configuration, there will be a Gulf Stream. If Central America were to disappear or the isthmus break apart, the currents could change dramatically.
So essentially the Earth rotates, and the oceans follows as best its viscosity allows it to keep up and all the while with a little disturbance from the ever so pesky tiny speck of a body called the moon, so what ever drives the rotation drives the oceans which drives our current type of climate.
So, if the earth moves and the oceans follows, but by how much when the earth moves a little extra say due to tectonic shifts? Is there any study, preferably with some proper non linear math, that has tried to tell such a story, is what I’m wondering, because what happens to zillions of gallons of water when you have enough force to be able to disturb it, even the slightest.
Carl Wunsch, Gulf Stream safe if wind blows and earth turns, Nature 428, p.601, (2004)
“cotume frama”
Do I correctly interpret this as “costume drama”? Someone needs to use a browser with a spellchecker 😉
Al Cooper 05:20:06:
“As long as the Earth spins the mountains will stir the atmosphere…”
And as long as the sun shines the Tropics will be warmer than the Poles. And as long as we have air and liquid water there will be a natural distribution of heat from the Equator towards the Poles. If the Gulf Stream stopped something else would have to start up in its place, so I worry not, even though I live at the South-Western extremity of the UK.