Norwegian observations confirms: The Gulf Stream has been stable over the past 20 years

One the more alarming claims about global warming is that is will cause a change in ocean currents, such as the Gulf Stream.

Øystein Nordfjeld of Norway writes in with this submission:

Fig 1 - Golf stream overview
Fig 1 – Golf stream overview

In Norwegian media this week, professor and oceanographer Kjell Arild Orvik at Geophysical Institute , University of Bergen, confirmed their results of 20 years of measurements of the Gulf Stream. The observations have taken place outside Måløy at the west-coast of Norway, were the speed, force, and temperature have been measured every hour since 24th April 1995.

On the science web site Forskning.no he states :

What we see is that the stream is lively in the sense that it varies both seasonally and from year to year. But when observing it over 20 years, it shows long-term stability.

In the national newspaper “VG”, he emphasizes the importance of long-term observations and explains : – During the first 10 years we saw an increase in the temperature of one degree Celsius. But, during the following ten years, the temperatures dropped again and are now back to the 1995-level. This confirms the long-term variations in the Gulf Stream.

Fig 2 – Golf Stream – temp measurements west coast Norway “Got hotter, then cold again. The green line in this figure shows the annual variations of the temperature. It increased one degree Celsius from 1995 to 2005. Since then the temperatures have dropped back to the 1995-level. The average temperature at the depth of 100 meters is 8.9 degree Celsius.” (from the newspaper VG)

 


References:

http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/klimatrusselen/avfeier-paastander-om-at-golfstroemmen-braastanser/a/23451235/

http://forskning.no/klima/2015/05/golfstrommen-stabil-de-20-siste-arene

VG is the largest national newspaper in Norway. Forskning.no is the leading national science web site.

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Ralph Kramden
May 23, 2015 12:14 pm

But when observing it over 20 years, it shows long-term stability” Denier!

Brute
Reply to  Ralph Kramden
May 23, 2015 2:01 pm

Extreme Sameness is also a consequence of CAGW.

Dawtgtomis
Reply to  Brute
May 23, 2015 3:03 pm

Or unprecedented repetition?

Brute
Reply to  Brute
May 23, 2015 5:12 pm

The precedents being?

siamiam
Reply to  Brute
May 24, 2015 7:14 am

Sameness A businessman visits Bergen. It’s raining when he arrives. Three days later it’s still raining. He asks a little girl in the hotel lobby if it ever stops raining. She says, I don’t know. I’m only six.

Louis Hunt
Reply to  Ralph Kramden
May 23, 2015 2:09 pm

What a coincidence. Global temperatures have also shown remarkable stability over the past 20 years.

Reply to  Louis Hunt
May 26, 2015 10:57 pm

That must be the biggest coincidence of all…..
Where have all the money CO2-believers had via taxes and gifts gone? That is the hard miljard dollar question…
Half of that money would have made it possible to clean water for millions of people who have had their water poisoned and/or filled with slam/sand etc….

Reply to  Ralph Kramden
May 23, 2015 2:10 pm

“During the first 10 years we saw an increase in the temperature of one degree Celsius. But, during the following ten years, the temperatures dropped again and are now back to the 1995-level.”
I entered coordinates of the place, 61.9N and slightly west 5E (place is inside a fiord, 5.1E) into NOAA’s data base. Måløy is apparently SST station so numbers appear to be good and confirm the report but it appears there is more to it . Here is graph going back to 1950.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Maloy.gif
I don’t see great deal of stability during last 60 years.

climatereason
Editor
Reply to  vukcevic
May 23, 2015 2:19 pm

Vuk
I date say if your data went back to 1920 or so we would see a spike in temperatures broadly similar to today
Tonyb

Reply to  vukcevic
May 23, 2015 3:09 pm

Vuk,
Why don’t you spend 20 years in Maloy, Norway, and report back how much you like living up there with an annual hi-lo average temp of 47F degrees, which could be 48 by the end of your stay. Population 3200 today. It’s not exactly a popular spot to live.
Take a good wardrobe,log each day’s clothing: “All winter I wore a sheepskin coat with heavy cap any gloves, in April I wore a sheepskin coat with a light cap and light gloves, , but in May I just wore a sheepskin jacket with a light cap and light gloves, and in June I was down to a wool sweater with no cap and no gloves, which was good thru August. Then back to warmer clothes. I never ran a heater in winter. I just wore my coat indoors, and slept under a wooly sheepskin blanket. I would have used down, but it would have required the down to be enwrapped in evil fossil-fuel-derived nylon. I’m into natural locally-sourced sustainable clothing and sleepwear.”
Two, make your graph with a bottom line of zero Celsius. How does the 1-degree temp rise look scaled like this?
Three, do the scientific thing and make your graph with a bottom line of zero Kelvin.
Four. tell us about the ginormous influx of people coming up from Southern Norway, Sweden, Germany, and other nations to Maloy over the time you lived there, to escape the awful heat down south.

Reply to  vukcevic
May 23, 2015 3:38 pm

Hi Schoolsie
Thanks for the invitation. I would enjoy visit to Norway, Maloy or even Tromso, specially if there is a big geomagnetic storm with an aurora to follow.
I think 20 days would be about right.
Temperatures are for the sea surface and the numbers are for the NOAA, I have added the coldest and the warmest month.

Ursus Augustus
Reply to  vukcevic
May 23, 2015 4:21 pm

The article said “outside Maloy”. I assume that means outside the fjord and in the Gulf Stream properusing a dedicated instrument that has only been in place for 20 years.

VikingExplorer
Reply to  vukcevic
May 23, 2015 11:04 pm

Thank you Ursus for stating the obvious and saving me the trouble.

Reply to  vukcevic
May 24, 2015 6:31 am

Schoolsie
Useful wardrobe advice – it the Norwegians who have the saying: “there is no bad weather, only bad clothing.”

Janice the Elder
Reply to  vukcevic
May 24, 2015 6:44 pm

Schoolsie: “I would have used down, but it would have required the down to be enwrapped in evil fossil-fuel-derived nylon”
Nylon is not fossil-fuel-derived. The technology for making nylon was arrived at about the same time as the technology for making black powder. Was just a curiosity for a long time, before being developed commercially.

Janice the Elder
Reply to  vukcevic
May 24, 2015 7:46 pm

Oops. My chemistry expert, whom I am married to, misled me. Nylon is based on evil fossil-fuels. It is Rayon that was derived from cellulose. I apologize for the error. Will do fact-checking before posting “facts” next time.

tgmccoy
Reply to  Ralph Kramden
May 23, 2015 2:11 pm

What does a Norwegian know about Ocea… wait… Never mind….
I think sameness is going to be the eventual death of CAGW…
When that happens, i like to have the corpse put in a “Star Trek”
type transporter and set on “liquify.”
Just to make sure.. 😉

andy
Reply to  Ralph Kramden
May 23, 2015 2:51 pm

you could be the denier bunch of crap

jones
Reply to  Ralph Kramden
May 23, 2015 3:03 pm

All vicious lies…Vicious I tells yer…
It’s only weather….
Need thirty years of observations..
Or forty……..

James Allison
Reply to  Ralph Kramden
May 23, 2015 5:47 pm

CAGS.

Garfy
May 23, 2015 12:22 pm

To be transfered to Nicolas HULOT and “fafa”

Jer0me
May 23, 2015 12:23 pm

Yet another nail in the CAGW coffin…

eki
May 23, 2015 12:23 pm

So the heat is not hiding there. And it kinda wreks the theory that abnormally warmer water is transported to the pole region.

JimS
May 23, 2015 12:26 pm

Of course the Gulf Stream has been stable for the last 20 years, because for the last 20 years THERE HAS BEEN NO GLOBAL WARMING! Sheesh, people, come on now… hmmmm… did I say something wrong?

Reply to  JimS
May 23, 2015 2:13 pm

Good point.
But if the heat had entered the system in another form than global temperature rise then it may have had an impact.
And the predictions that the Gulf Stream would slow were due to the decrease in Arctic Ocean salinity due to the melting of the Arctic Ocean sea ice.
The Arctic sea ice level has declined.
So it is interesting that the Gulf Stream has not had a correlating trend.

andy
Reply to  MCourtney
May 23, 2015 2:52 pm

because it’s bunk let it go tree hugger’s

Editor
Reply to  JimS
May 23, 2015 7:36 pm

Just because satellite temperatures haven’t changed much over the last 20 years does not mean that people shouldn’t bother studying the Gulf Stream. Nor does it mean we should stop studying the satellite data.
Yes, you did say something wrong.

Reply to  Ric Werme
May 24, 2015 2:29 pm

I suspect he is saying, why should anyone be surprised that the Gulf Stream temperature has been stable, not that we should stop studying it. Frankly, I don’t see how you could possibly interpret his remark as you did.

Latitude
May 23, 2015 12:30 pm

Rather than showing any signs of storing heat, as is the case in the Atlantic Ocean…..
……..But, during the following ten years, the temperatures dropped again and are now back to the 1995-level.
yepper

May 23, 2015 12:31 pm

Thanks, it is is good to know the Gulf Stream is OK.
BTW, don’t miss Joe Bastardi at http://www.weatherbell.com/saturday-summary-may-23-2015

Alan Robertson
Reply to  Andres Valencia
May 23, 2015 2:03 pm

A must- good stuff- Thanks. (and Thanks Joe.)

May 23, 2015 12:46 pm

“… he emphasizes the importance of long-term observations and explains …”
Well that statement should get him drummed out of the climate science business.

mikewaite
Reply to  markstoval
May 23, 2015 1:10 pm

I doubt that that will happen , judging from a previous publication :
“One more step toward a warmer Arctic
Polyakov, Igor V. ; Beszczynska-Möller, Agnieszka ; Carmack, Eddy C. ; Dmitreko, Igor A. ; Fahrbach, E. ; Frolov, Ivan E. ; Gerdes, Rüdiger ; Hansen, Edmond ; Holfort, Jürgen ; Ivanov, Vladimir V. ; Johnson, Mark A. ; Karcher, Michael ; Kauker, Frank ; Morison, James ; ORVIK , KJELL ARLID ; Schauer, Ursula ; Simmons, Harper L. ; Skagseth, Øystein ; Sokolov, Vladimir T. ; Steele, Michael ; Timokhov, Leonid A. ; Walsh, David ; Walsh, John E. ”
“Geophysical Research Letters 2005 32 L17605
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1956/786
Show full item record
Abstract:
This study was motivated by a strong warming signal seen in mooring-based and oceanographic survey data collected in 2004 in the Eurasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean. The source of this and earlier Arctic Ocean changes lies in interactions between polar and sub-polar basins. Evidence suggests such changes are abrupt, or pulse-like, taking the form of propagating anomalies that can be traced to higher-latitudes. For example, an anomaly found in 2004 in the eastern Eurasian Basin took ~1.5 years to propagate from the Norwegian Sea to the Fram Strait region, and additional ~4.5–5 years to reach the Laptev Sea slope. While the causes of the observed changes will require further investigation, our conclusions are consistent with prevailing ideas suggesting the Arctic Ocean is in transition towards a new, warmer state.”
He is well in with the in-crowd.

MRW
Reply to  mikewaite
May 23, 2015 8:58 pm

I don’t see a Nordfjeld, Øystein in that list.

Jim Watson
May 23, 2015 1:16 pm

This was one of the last great hopes of the Warmbots. We’re getting awfully close to checkmate here…

1sky1
May 23, 2015 1:19 pm

It’s in the long-term variations of ocean temperatures, not in dry-bulb temperatures at urban locations, that the true story of global climate change is told. Geophysicists and oceanographers have know this for decades; “climate scientists” have yet to come to grips with that fact.

Bill Illis
May 23, 2015 1:23 pm

Funny how the NCDC has completely different numbers than these direct every hour measurements.
Grid Box, 0E-7.5E, 60Nto65N, right at the measurement location of Maloy, Norway.
NCDC ERSSTV4 has huge seasonality centered around 10.0C versus the directly measured 8.8C (with little seasonality).
http://s10.postimg.org/bwtyxi1nt/iersstv4_0_7_5_E_60_65_N_n_1996_2015.png
NCDC ERSSTV4 also has an anomaly increasing by over 1.0C from 1996 to 2015 versus nothing really from the direct measurements.
http://s2.postimg.org/t33ykwu95/iersstv4_0_7_5_E_60_65_N_n_1996_2015a.png

1sky1
Reply to  Bill Illis
May 23, 2015 1:30 pm

Bill:
The differences arise from the different depths at which the ocean temperature is measured.

philincalifornia
May 23, 2015 1:31 pm

Admittedly by eyeballing, but looks like an inverse correlation with Arctic sea ice anomaly:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/images/iphone.anomaly.global.png
I know, I know, “No sh!t Sherlock”.

Frank Kotler
Reply to  philincalifornia
May 24, 2015 5:29 am

Admittedly by eyeballing, but that looks like global sea ice, not Arctic…

András, G.
May 23, 2015 1:43 pm

The Gulf Stream causes a positive temperature anomaly in Western and Northern Europe preventing harbours to freeze in. If the Golf Current had slowed down, the harbour of Murmansk in Russia would have been frozen in winter.

Sir Harry Flashman
May 23, 2015 1:47 pm

Where in mainstream – ie AGW – climate science do you find predictions of the Gulf Stream warming? Rather, the concerns have been of a slowing down, which actually involves cooling temperatures in parts of the North Atlantic.

Alan Robertson
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
May 23, 2015 2:14 pm

Sure thing. Warming means cooling.

Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
May 23, 2015 2:20 pm

The expectation that the Gulf Stream will slow is due to changes in salinity of the Arctic from sea ice melt – the Arctic sea ice has declined.
But no-one cares about that.
For a feed-back and thus a tipping point to occur the Gulf Stream must stop being warm and so stop warming western Europe.
There are no failed harvests on Summer Isle and so we don’t need to adopt the extreme interventions desired by the AGW true believers.
Yet.

Reply to  MCourtney
May 23, 2015 2:21 pm

For clarity: It doesn’t matter how quickly the warm is flowing.
So long as the warm is flowing and doesn’t cool while doing so.

philincalifornia
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
May 23, 2015 2:21 pm

I found this English translation:
http://www.norwaytoday.info/home_view.php?id=127464
Excerpted for you:
“The conclusion is that the Gulf Stream currently has approximately the same speed, power and temperature as 20 years ago.The measurements of the flow temperature and strength have happened every hour since 24 April 1995.”
Pity the article was so short and didn’t talk about that, or where this is being published as, given this guy’s publication record (although not voluminous), it almost certainly will be:
http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Detail?entitytype=2&searchtype=2&id=34213168

Latitude
Reply to  philincalifornia
May 23, 2015 2:47 pm

the Gulf Stream currently has approximately the same speed, power and temperature as 20 years ago…But, during the following ten years, the temperatures dropped again and are now back to the 1995-level.
============
In the latest report out of Nature Geoscience this week, University of Miami physical oceanographer Sang-Ki Lee….Rather than showing any signs of storing heat, as is the case in the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean has actually cooled over the last decade
=====
They both just said the Atlantic and Pacific have cooled over the past 10 years…..
…where’s the missing heat?

Reply to  philincalifornia
May 23, 2015 3:23 pm

“Pity the article was so short … ”
As Mark Twain once commented: “I’m sorry that this letter is so long, but I didn’t have time to write a short one”. Does length trump prescience?

philincalifornia
Reply to  philincalifornia
May 23, 2015 4:20 pm

Well yes, sometimes indeed less is more but, in this instance, two obvious criticisms (from Philip Finck and SFH) could have been averted with another short sentence or three.

nutso fasst
Reply to  philincalifornia
May 24, 2015 1:29 pm

“…where’s the missing heat?”
You haven’t been paying attention to the headlines…
Missing Heat Lurking in Indian Ocean, Says Study – Reporting Climate Science
Heat is Piling Up in the Depths of the Indian Ocean – Climate Central
Heat Captured By Pacific Is Being Sent to the Indian Ocean – phys.org
It remains undetermined whether the heat is lurking, piled up, or imprisoned. If the former, then its discovery will probably prompt it to skulk elsewhere.

1sky1
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
May 23, 2015 2:43 pm

Sir Harry:
FYI, the Norwegian measurement location is far from being within the Gulf Stream. It is the waters of the North Atlantic Drift and the Norwegian Coastal Current that are being monitored in a region where land-stations have shown a distinct warming trend. It’s a similar disconnect with oceanographic facts that leads to the myth of a catastrophic slow-down of the wind-driven Gulf Stream. Complete ignorance of ocean dynamics is rampant among AGWers.

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  1sky1
May 23, 2015 5:43 pm

My point was that mainstream climate science doesn’t predict a heating of the Gulf Stream from AGW, which makes this whole post a straw man. I don’t know what your point is
There has been speculation (because that’s how science works) that it could slow down, which I don’t think anyone besides the writers of “The Day After Tomorrow” think would be catastrophic. And your deep knowledge of the waters off Norway notwithstanding, there’s evidence that that’s happening.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/pifc-aoo032015.php

MRW
Reply to  1sky1
May 23, 2015 8:24 pm

@Sir Harry Flashman,

And your deep knowledge of the waters off Norway notwithstanding, there’s evidence that that’s happening.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/pifc-aoo032015.php

That paper you quote does not present evidence. It’s all supposition and suggestion.
Øystein Nordfjeld, et al, are basing their paper on 20 years of hourly data.

andy
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
May 23, 2015 2:56 pm

flip flop flip flop give me a break

MRW
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
May 23, 2015 8:14 pm

@Sir Harry Flashman,
They said they were measuring three things:

The observations have taken place outside Måløy at the west-coast of Norway, were the speed, force, and temperature have been measured every hour since 24th April 1995.

MRW
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
May 24, 2015 12:24 am

Rather, the concerns have been of a slowing down, which actually involves cooling temperatures in parts of the North Atlantic.

Sir Harry, the Gulf Stream is controlled by the wind. The only way the Gulf Stream is going to slow is if you stop the wind or the rotation of the earth.

Steve Garcia
Reply to  MRW
May 25, 2015 3:51 pm

Amen. I’ve been saying that since the first time I heard of he oceanic conveyor and its possible shutdown. But I didn’t start saying it until I’d stopped laughing. Real life scientists really believe that????

Gentle Tramp
May 23, 2015 2:00 pm

I think, there is a little typo in the second sentence above:
“…claims about global warming is that IT will cause a change in ocean currents…”

Theo Goodwin
May 23, 2015 2:47 pm

Climate scientists observing an actual physical process and carefully measuring it over an extended time period. Amazing. My how things are changing.

MarkW
May 23, 2015 4:45 pm

“During the first 10 years we saw an increase in the temperature of one degree Celsius. But, during the following ten years, the temperatures dropped again and are now back to the 1995-level.”
Coming IPCC report the data will be truncated in 2005.

May 23, 2015 5:27 pm

These measurements are carried out in the current close to Svinøy (outside Måløy on the west-coast), and in the Fram strait further up North. You can see the locations and read more about the Norwegian Atlantic Current Observatory in English here :

VikingExplorer
Reply to  Øystein Nordfjeld
May 23, 2015 11:18 pm

Takk Øystein for rapportering om dette. Min onkel var en gang en professor ved UIB, så kanskje han visste Kjell.

Jaakko Kateenkorva
Reply to  VikingExplorer
May 24, 2015 12:54 am

The world is small.

Reply to  VikingExplorer
May 24, 2015 4:00 am

Bare hyggelig. Vi får prøve å bringe litt balansert kunnskap fra Norge også.

ren
Reply to  Øystein Nordfjeld
May 24, 2015 10:02 am

Geophysical Institute (GFI), University of Bergen, Norway serves as responsible host for the Norwegian Atlantic Current Observatory (NACO facility). Operations are coordinated with Institute of Marine Research (IMR) and Runde Environmental Centre (REC) for launch/recovery, flight control of gliders and field instrumentation. Principles for operation of the gliders are determined by a Scientific User Committee. The infrastructure is accessible for qualified users through the internet.
http://naco.gfi.uib.no/pict/glob_ocean.jpg

May 23, 2015 6:13 pm

Maybe the heat in hiding under the Antarctic ice? Someone should take a look. Oh wait…

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  Mike Smith
May 23, 2015 7:58 pm

The heat is transported to the center of the Earth to keep the core molten at millions of degrees Fahrenheit – Al Gore.

May 23, 2015 8:30 pm

I think their term “…long-term stability.” Shows what true data reveals. I think the global temperature data show the same – “…long-term stability.”
The first graphic reminds me of some of my pure color paintings. (click on my name to find out)
(not to self promote, which I have avoided, but I am going to miss the DC climate change conference, which I would really like to go to), but I have a “one man show of my work which is opening on the same dates in Lambertville, NJ. If anyone wants show up on Sat 13th I will be glad to talk about “climate change” or “global Warming” for those who live in PA, or NJ. Just click on my name to find out about it…Sorry WUWT, I usually stick to the subject at hand, not self promotion…

Reply to  J. Philip Peterson
May 23, 2015 8:39 pm

Plants are growing like crazy down here in the Baja desert. It is usually pretty brown this time of year, but had rain sprinkle today and the desert is pretty green – so much so that it almost hides the cacti. I think it’s the extra CO2, anyone disagree?

Reply to  J. Philip Peterson
May 23, 2015 8:45 pm

Funny in the graphic, how they made Greenland look so hot!!

Reply to  J. Philip Peterson
May 23, 2015 9:11 pm

Elevation model not heat?

Reply to  J. Philip Peterson
May 23, 2015 10:22 pm

There are much higher elevations in the Alps, Kenya, Western S America (other places above 10,000 ft) and they are not as red hot as Greenland…just sayin…(all of Greenland is not above 10,000 ft)

Reply to  J. Philip Peterson
May 23, 2015 10:30 pm

Like I said, I like the colors though, but I don’t believe they show true data.

May 23, 2015 9:02 pm

“False predictions about climate,
False predictions galore;
False predictions about the weather
That we have in store.
Yet we keep on believing
The predictions we’re given,
By some irrational fear
We seem to be driven…..”
Read more: http://wp.me/p3KQlH-DG .