Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Two new studies have promoted concerns that anthropogenic global warming could cause abrupt cooling in the Northern Hemisphere – the “Day after Tomorrow” scenario.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald;
Two new studies are adding to concerns about one of the most troubling scenarios for future climate change: the possibility that global warming could slow or shut down the Atlantic’s great ocean circulation systems, with dramatic implications for North America and Europe.
The research, by separate teams of scientists, bolsters predictions of disruptions to global ocean currents – such as the Gulf Stream – that transfer tropical warmth from the equator to northern latitudes, as well as a larger conveyor system that cycles colder water into the ocean’s depths. Both systems help ensure relatively mild conditions in parts of Northern Europe that would otherwise be much colder.
The abstract of the first study, lead author Paul Gierz
Climate change can influence sea surface conditions and the melting rates of ice sheets; resulting in decreased deep water formation rates and ultimately affecting the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). As such, a detailed study of the interactive role of dynamic ice sheets on the AMOC and therefore on global climate is required. We utilize a climate model in combination with a dynamic ice sheet model to investigate changes to the AMOC and North Atlantic climate in response to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios for RCP4.5 and RCP6. It is demonstrated that the inclusion of an ice sheet component results in a drastic freshening of the North Atlantic by up to 2 practical salinity units, enhancing high-latitude haloclines and weakening the AMOC by up to 2 sverdrup (106 m3/s). Incorporating a bidirectionally coupled dynamic ice sheet results in relatively reduced warming over Europe due to the associated decrease in heat transport.
The abstract of the second study, lead author Jud Partin
Proxy records of temperature from the Atlantic clearly show that the Younger Dryas was an abrupt climate change event during the last deglaciation, but records of hydroclimate are underutilized in defining the event. Here we combine a new hydroclimate record from Palawan, Philippines, in the tropical Pacific, with previously published records to highlight a difference between hydroclimate and temperature responses to the Younger Dryas. Although the onset and termination are synchronous across the records, tropical hydroclimate changes are more gradual (>100 years) than the abrupt (10–100 years) temperature changes in the northern Atlantic Ocean. The abrupt recovery of Greenland temperatures likely reflects changes in regional sea ice extent. Proxy data and transient climate model simulations support the hypothesis that freshwater forced a reduction in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, thereby causing the Younger Dryas. However, changes in ocean overturning may not produce the same effects globally as in Greenland.
Northern deep freeze studies seem to be fashionable lately, even Michael Mann had a go earlier this year.
Perhaps giant blocks of ice washing up on American beaches is proving difficult to reconcile with the end of snow narrative. Having said that, there has always been a low profile nod towards the possibility of abrupt cooling, which is of course still all our fault. This apparent effort to keep all the options open is beautifully captured by one of my favourite climategate emails.
Climategate email 4141.txt (written in 2004)
In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public relations problem with the media, which can become public perception. It provides a new story for the old news that is climate change – a story that has been running since 1985/88.
Last Friday, even NERC put-out a press release that opened ‘British scientists set sail today from Glasgow to begin work aimed at discovering if Britain is indeed in danger of entering the next ice age.’
…
Dear Asher, and all,
I think this is a real problem, and I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labelling than global warming. But somehow I also feel that one needs to add the dimension of the earth system, and the fact that human beings for the first time ever are able to impact on that system.
Let’s not forget folks, that what we are dealing with is “settled science”.
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Actually, all of this is very much like the novel ‘1984’ where the rulers ordered staff to constantly change the past to suit future predictions and alter the present to reflect desires not reality. This then happened faster and faster with the poor workers struggling to keep up with the multiple past/present/future alterations that all had to reflect each other’s reality while erasing anything that contradicted the New Reality Today.
More evidence that (1) climate models are crap and (2) climate modelers do not understand what drives ocean currents. More fodder for my book. Yippeeee!
To stop the Gulf Stream, the sun has to stop shining or the Earth has to stop rotating or both. That is, ocean currents are driven by the trade winds, which are caused by the rotation of the Earth and the surface temperature difference between the equatorial waters and those of the extratropics. That temperature difference between equatorial waters and those of the extratropics is of course caused by the sun shining more directly on the tropics than the extratropics.
Karl Wunsch of MIT addressed this more than 10 years ago in his letter to Nature is titled “Gulf Stream safe if wind blows and world turns”.
http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/naturegulfstreamltr.pdf
Don’t give them more ideas!
Next, they will claim that CO2 will stop the earth from rotating on its axis. 🙂
My first instinct was: Karl Wunsch must not be worried about his career. Yep. He retired a couple of years ago. wiki
It isn’t necessary to have the Ministry of Truth continually alter history. Noam Chomsky showed us in The Political Economy of Human Rights that conspiracies aren’t necessary. Folks will automatically self-censor. No young scientist would dare to write the letter that Prof. Wunsch wrote; it would be a ‘career-limiting-move’.
Exactly right Bob.
It also occurred to me that the sinning gyres of the ocean must have a fairly hefty amount of inertia, and will keep right on spinning for a while even if everything did coast to a stop and go dark.
Which makes me wonder if the authors thought that somehow the effects they dream up ( to call it hypothesizing would seem to give the notion too much credit), would happen rapidly, such that cause and effect could be readily discerned?
I mean, just inertia alone would seemingly cause considerable lag, so how would anyone know if changing ocean currents did not result from some long since passed influence?
This is, of course, one of the problems with just making stuff up…one never knows when to put a bow around the fantasy and call it a finished idea.
That is exactly right Bob. The Gulf Stream starts at the equator right next to Africa. It is not “pulled” north by sinking cold water in the Arctic, it is “pushed” west by the trade winds across the equatorial Atlantic, corralled by the continental shelf of the Americas and then pushed north by the mid-latitude westerly winds and the weight of all that other water being “pushed” in behind it from the equator.
The Gulf Stream slows down when the winds slow down and they won’t do that until the Earth no longer has an atmopshere and/or it stops spinning.
And the AMOC sinking water in the “north Atlantic” actually comes from the entire Arctic Ocean basin under the sea ice, not the north Atlantic next to Greenland.
These climate scientists should not be modelling the AMOC or the Gulf Stream if they do not even understand how they actually work. Real oceanographers need to speak up now and stop these people.
The other issue is that, during the Ice Ages when sea level was as much as 130 metres lower, the Gulf Stream had to take a different route outside of the Caribbean Islands, than it does today. A good ocean current needs about 200 metres of depth to flow properly.
The current Gulf Stream squeezes through the areas in this map which are at least 200 metres deep, after moving up the South American coast, it flows through the coast and the lesser Antilles Islands, then the point between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula, then into the Gulf of Mexico where it often forms a loop, and then through the deeper channel between Florida and the Bahamas. It almost looks like the Gulf Stream has scoured its own channel deeper here.
In the ice ages, the ocean was too shallow or actually above sea level so that the Gulf Stream had to flow around the outside of all the Caribbean Islands. There may have been periods in the deglaciation/sea level rise period when the Gulf Stream made fleeting efforts to establish a new route through the Caribbean as it became deeper and this could have disrupted how it worked overall. Maybe the Younger Dryas is just one of those periods.
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2011/01/572_20101103-OceanBathymetry-Labels-2000px-660×495.jpg
Perhaps the extra heat from co2 causes a runaway super convective cooling scenario and this whole thing should actually be called Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Freezing? One way or the other, we are screwed and us humans are the purveyors of this doom simply because there are government paid storytellers out there to ensure that the doom will be from heat, cold, or financial and societal destruction. Just has to be. Humans are bad.
/Yes…sarcasm. truth. Anger at idiots
1984 Doublethink
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
Global warming is global cooling
Eugene WR Gallun
Garbage In, “Climate Science” out. So simple a monkey could do it.
It may get cold.
It may get hot,
But settled science,
it’s clearly not!
Our Trillions spent
on mad endeavour,
while not one cent
can change our weather.
the end of snow
more fire, more drought
now chicken little
has been called out
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/01/the-arctic-iris-effect-dansgaard-oeschger-events-and-climate-model-shortcomings-lesson-from-climate-past-part-1/
When the Arctic cools which is not to far off it will be to this study and not the other type of reasons which are a bunch of BS.
THE ARCTIC IRIS EFFECT
CORRECTION- due to this study
Due to the study, or due to the effects described in the study?
Just askin’.
Every paleo climatology book that discusses the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event – the Younger Dryas is the name for a period 11,900 years ago when the planet when from interglacial warm to glacial cold with 70% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade and the cold period (during the Younger Dryas the North Atlantic ocean froze each winter to a latitude of Northern Spain and the ice sheets returned to North America, UK, and Northern Europe) lasting for 1200 years, asserts the cause of abrupt cooling is somehow related to a melt pulse which interrupts the ‘thermalhaline’ conveyor and stops the ‘Gulf Stream’. How many times have you heard that statement?
P.S.
The Younger Dryas occurred at a time when summer solar insolation at 65N was maximum. The theory that solar summer insolation at 65N has anything to do with why there is a 100,000 year glacial/interglacial cycle is also a Zombie theory.
Why are paleo climate books chock full of Zombie theories? Why do climate Zombie theories continue to be past down from generation to generation?
The first reason for the existence of the Zombie theories in paleo climate text books is there is a massive unknown forcing function (p.s. It is the sun.) that is causing what is observed, Zombie theories fill the void as scientists know there must be a physical explanation for cyclic (key observation, the abrupt climate change is cyclic not random and the abrupt climate changes correlate with abrupt changes to cosmogenic isotopes which indicates a major change to the sun is occurring) abrupt climate change.
The second reason for the Zombie theories is the climate wars. If the sun caused past cyclic abrupt climate change then it seems logical that the sun also caused the cyclic smaller slower changes to the planet’s climate such as the warming in the last 150 years.
There are three urban legends/Zombie theories connected with the Younger Dryas, the Gulf Stream, and cyclic abrupt climate change.
1a) The largest melt pulse in the Holocene, occurred a thousand years before the start of the Younger Dryas, there is no evidence that the largest melt pulse in the entire Holocene record caused any cooling. It has been known for at least a decade, that the largest melt pulse in the Holocene does not even correlate in time with the occurrence of the Younger Dryas, yet the interruption to the ‘Gulf Stream’ Zombie theory continues to live in the media and in silly papers.
1b) Ignoring paradox 1a) which should have been the stake through the heart/head of the Gulf Stream Zombie theory, the following is peer reviewed analysis and basic reasoning to kill the Gulf Stream Zombie theory.
Wally Broeker started the urban legend that a stoppage of the North Atlantic drift current has ‘part of the solution’ as to what caused the Younger Dryas. A hint that you are being told a Zombie theory in a paleo text book is the rhetoric statement ‘Zombie theory X’ is ‘part of the solution’ for what needs to be explained, followed by a hand waving explanation of the Zombie theory, and then a list of a half dozen paradoxes to disprove the Zombie theory.
(I kid you not. I can quote a list of Zombie theories from my paleo textbooks followed by observational paradoxes, from the same textbook, that disprove the zombie theory, if your are interested.)
Wally’s paper (I have a link to Wally’s papers if anyone is interested) includes no calculation of the magnitude of the heat carried by the North Atlantic drift current verses normal summer warming of the North Atlantic ocean. Wally just says there is a big change and an interruption to the Gulf stream could be part of the solution.
Seager et al’s 2002 paper does a basic calculation (which is support by a half dozen papers published 10 years before Seager’s paper, see link below, Seager notes his finding is not controversial and is the same reason why the northern west coast US states are 10 to 15C warmer than northern east coast US states) which quantifies the amount of warming that is due to North Atlantic drift current vs normal summer warming of the ocean. That basic calculation shows the majority of the heat transfer, the reason why Europe in the winter at latitudes above 60N is warmer than the east coast of the US is due to atmospheric transfer of heat, not due to ocean current transfer of heat.
A complete stoppage of the North Atlantic drift current (aka the ‘Gulf Stream’ which is also an urban legend) would only result in cooling of a few degrees in winter in Europe.
Stoppage of the Gulf Stream could not and did not cause the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event. Stoppage of the Gulf stream could not and did not cause the 8200 years before present abrupt cooling event.
Reaction by a university geology professor after reading Seager’s paper.
http://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2012/06/what-do-you-mean-the-gulf-stream-doesnt-keep-europe-warm-how-even-scientists-are-afflicted-by-urban-myths/
Stoppage of North Atlantic drift current is not ‘part of the solution’ of cyclic abrupt climate change. The abrupt cooling events are cyclic and have no explanation. The cyclic abrupt cooling events require a massive forcing function to cause the cyclic abrupt cooling. Big surprise there needs to be a physical explanation for what is observed. There are no magic amplification mechanisms that can appear when need to amplify tiny forcing changes and then disappear to explain why the massive short term forcing change caused by a super volcano eruption does not end an interglacial period or cause the planet’s climate to wildly oscillated.
2) The Discrete thermalhaline conveyor Zombie theory. There is no discrete ‘thermalhaline conveyor’ in the Atlantic to interrupt. Wally Broeker hypothesized the existence of a discrete thermalhaline conveyor with no proof (Wally’s paper includes a picture of the hypothesized discrete conveyor which is repeated ad infinitum.) A melt pulse will not stop the North Atlantic drift current as there is no discrete ‘thermalhaline current’ to interrupt. Data to support this comment will covered in the next comment.
3) Zombie theory ‘Tipping points’ or climate ‘jumps’ from one state to another. It is a fact that there is cyclic abrupt climate change in the paleo record. The Younger Dryas is an example of cyclic abrupt climate change. As the massive forcing mechanism that causes cyclic abrupt climate change is not known Wally Broeker also started the urban legend of ‘tipping points’ which has since morphed into the earth’s climate can jump from one state to another, with no explanation as to why the climate can ‘jump’.
Rocks do not occasionally jump up hill. Massive changes to the earth climate require a massive forcing change. More on the Zombie theory of ‘jumping’ climate states in another comment.
Jumping climate, infers a magical tipping point mechanism which will only when required amplify a tiny forcing as much as necessary and as long as necessary (Younger Dryas is 1200 years in duration, at a time when solar insolation at 65N was maximum) to ’cause’ the abrupt change of the earth’s climate.
If there was a massive positive amplification of forcing changes the planet could and would return to the glacial phase each time there was a major volcanic eruption, during the interglacial period. If there was positive feedback the planet’s temperature would wildly oscillate when there has a major eruption. That is not observed. (More peer reviewed papers and analysis to support the assertion that there is no magical tipping point amplification in later comments.)
2002 Paper that unequivocally shows that the a complete stoppage of the ‘Gulf Stream’ would only result in winter cooling of a few degrees in Northern Europe.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Gulf.pdf
2006 Paper which explains concept and analysis that shows an interruption to the ‘Gulf Stream’ will only result in cooling of a couple of degrees to the general public. The North Atlantic Drift current (aka Gulf ‘Stream’ is not the reason why Europe north of 60N is warming than the east coast of the US)
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-source-of-europes-mild-climate
Excellent as well William Astley
YES it is the sun doing this.
Secondly, the East Coast is cold because our weather comes straight out of the Arctic and Hudson Bay as the winter prevailing winds move from the cold continent mass towards the east while Europe gets the warmer ocean weather with the same prevailing winds.
So it can be way below zero in New York thanks to cold air over Canada while England rarely goes all that much below freezing at all.
This awful spin is because deep down they can’t get away from the likely continued cooling phase that will last up to 40 years. Younger dryas had km’s deep glacial ice over Canada and parts of USA and yet comparing this to something like now? If you are bad scientist why not just become a climate pseudo-scientist?
The Gulf stream never stops and continues to flow during the ice ages. Only difference is it flows less North and allows a circular polar ocean gyre to develop above it.
Any of these type of severe cooling events in future will have nothing to do with CO2, especially when it has no noticeable affect on oceans.
When you haven’t a clue what you are talking about of course anything could happen…
The post is pointing to some people excelling as contortionists, performers needed in every circus, including the IPCC.
These two articles are proof that people who think they are climate scientists simply don’t read the literature nor do they do their homework. Had they bothered to read my article on the Arctic in 2011 [E&E 22(8) 1069-1083 (2011)] they could have avoided a number of errors they commit. First, bringing in Younger Dryas is non-sensical because it was very likely caused by a cosmic one-off event. Second, using climate models makes no sense because none of the models since Hansen introduced them have been able to predict anything correctly. Third, they are ignorant of Arctic temperature changes during the last 2000 years. Lets begin with known temperature history. Kaufman et al. [Science, 28 January, 2011] made a study of Arctic temperature changes based upon annual freezing and thawing of sediments in small lakes in Arctic borderlands that have preserve a datable temperature history. They had a four million dollar budget to produce a 2000 year temperature history based on these lake sediments. Their finding first of all was that for almost 2000 years there was nothing in the Arctic but slow, linear cooling, probably caused by a steady, orbitally driven reduction in summer insolation. This came to an end at the turn of the twentieth century when Arctic temperature suddenly turned up and decided to create a hockey stick feature. The resolution of their measurements was not sufficient to show what happened during the upturn but fortunately NOAA’s Arctic Report Card for 2010 has high resolution details. I showed it as figure 2 in my article. The Arctic temperature in the twentieth century has three sections. The century starts with a linear temperature rise from 1900 to 1940, This is followed with linear cooling from 1940 to 1970, after which warming resumes.We are aware that there have been reports of Arctic cooling in the early part of our century but none of those reports go back before 1970. Hence, none of these numerous reports give you any idea of what really is happening in the Arctic. The biggest thing that happened in the twentieth century was a sudden temperature rise at the start of the century. It is quite certain that it cannot be caused by greenhouse warming. To start a greenhouse warming from scratch you must inject a substantial amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and we know that this did not happen. The only possible explanation of this sudden temperature change is a sudden change in the pattern of North Atlantic Ocean currents. This is the only way you can quickly swing a large amount of warm water into the Arctic Ocean. The cooling incident in mid-century could then be understood as a temporary return of the former flow pattern of currents. Bearing in mind that what has happened in nature can happen again we ask the question: is it possible for such a cooling incident to happen again? I would say yes but I cannot say hen. In view of the fact these guys are reporting possible cooling it is not impossible that another such cooling could be upon us. Whether or not the same phenomenon is at work we don’t know. It would be nice to know now what the currents in the North Atlantic have been doing but I doubt that any of those climate “scientists” were interested, what with the oceans ready to swallow up our cities and an ice age on the way.
Arno,
There is no actual evidence for a cosmic event at the YD. It’s a fantasy.
I seem to recall reading a WUWT article on this within the last 2 months which presented the case for a ‘cosmic event’? I haven’t checked, so I could be mistaken.
There is some evidence, but like all evidence based upon proxies, one needs to be extremely cautious. best taken with a pinch of salt.
No evidence at all that space impacts caused any of the severe cooling events in the past over thousands of years. The Younger Dryas warmed numerous times during it and a impact would only affect climate while dust was in the atmosphere. A few years later temperatures would be back to normal.
Odd celestial events do effect the sun..
The sun isn’t stationary. It moves around our galaxy as do all the stars and dust and junk. The sun is in an outer arm but it moves in and out of other space stuff depending on what is agitated by the galactic movement caused by the HUGE thing that exists at the center of our little galaxy and which is nearly entirely hidden by thick veils of interstellar dust.
All this causes the sun to be more active or quieter depending on what neighboring stars/entities/dust is around our planet’s passage at any given time.
Yes, that is a different matter to space impacts physically hitting the planet itself.
By some sequence of events the Interglacial will end. Prior to its end, things like the Younger Dryas may occur.
James,
Things like the YD happen during deglaciation. The end of interglacials is different, but obviously it gets colder, although not always as rapidly as during deglaciation events like the YD.
It is difficult to fathom the idiocy contained in such a statement. I can only assume that these people are morons, since what they say is so beyond the pale of even common sense. There is no getting around it; the idea that we can control the earth’s temperature, up or down, is moronic.
They declared years ago that the sun has zero effect on the climate. This lunacy is Medieval Science, not modern science. All the great scientists like Dr. Hubble and my grandfather who studied the sun in the past are rolling in their graves.
It’s the new twisty science, but also settled….and twisty.
Classic CYA. If it gets hot – it’s CO2. If it gets cold – it’s CO2.
Economic Geologist,
. . . and if there is a neither warming nor clooling then it’s also CO2 . . . CO2 the climate alchemist’s wet dream . . .
John
“New Studies Promote ___________ Fears”
fill in the blank – and run that headline every day of the week from now on.
Soon we will have an upside down cooling hockey stick that we are guilty of. All I can hope for is that the idiotic studies being stuffed into journals in the last-chance Paris climate bacchanalia can be seen by ordinary people to be garbage. Mark Steyn, who is laying the hockey stick belatedly to rest and possibly global warming next to it, with his book on “A Disgrace to the Profession…Mann Hockeystic..” hopefully will also find time, perhaps after the ‘Trial of the Century’, to chronicle the death throes of Climate Science as we’ve come to know it.
The broad ‘outing’ of scientists who had been officially silent on the Mann and hockey stick criminatological research will embolden them, free them and bring others out into the light on broader issues in this and other blots on the sciences. The ‘clime syndicate’ (M. Steyn’s creation) has been able to resist sceptical pressures by circling the wagons and smearing and sniping. There will henceforth be less appetite for this among those with some scruples who have been quietly loathing themselves for being fearful and silent. If you didn’t yet buy the ‘book’ that has brought all this to a head, by all means do so and you will not only be informed and entertained but you will be helping save freedom, free speech and democracy at the same time.
Gary says:
Soon we will have an upside down cooling hockey stick that we are guilty of.
We already have one:
The ultimate achievement of advocacy science is to preserve and extend classical definitions of science with a synthetic science that recognizes all the the cycles of nature but with an advocacy-policy stamp on all aspects therein. With enough grants and supercomputers it can eventually explain individual behaviors and even orbital dynamics.
CAGW alarmists are simply creating ad hoc excuses to obfuscate the complete and utter failure of their cargo cult.
There hasn’t been a global warming trend in almost two decades, the weakest solar cycle since 1906 is currently in effect, the 30-yr PDO cool cycle started in 2008, the 30-yr AMO cool cycle starts around 2020 (which will accelerate Arctic Ice recovery), Arctic Ice extents have been recovering since 2007, the Antarctic ice extents have been growing for 36 years and set a record last year, the next solar cycle is expected to be the weakest since the Maunder Minimum started in 1645 and there may be a Grand Solar Minimum for the next 80 years, which may cause over 1C of global cooling by 2100.
CAGW alarmists will continue to fiddle with the raw data and make bizarre excuses to keep the CAGW grant train chugging along for as long as possible, but the train is already in the ditch.
CAGW nas become a joke.
Agree 100%!
Utterly stupid!! So according to the warmistas we can’t allow the climate to warm up because it will cause the climate to cool down!!! What a bunch of morons!!
” the possibility that global warming could slow or shut down the Atlantic’s great ocean circulation systems, with dramatic implications for North America and Europe.”
This is a dead giveaway of another attempt to tie any possible climate change that the alarmist had not predicted to tie it again to global warming. More alarmist propaganda . The climate will cool during the next 20-30 years but not due to global warming
Zombie theory 2: There is no water discrete deep water thermalhaline conveyor to interrupt.
Changes in the North Atlantic drift current cannot therefore cause cooling at the equator. Come on man, these Zombie theories are ridiculous.
Ocean probe data indicates there is no discrete North Atlantic thermalhaline conveyor. The cold dense high latitude water, falls and is then distributed locally in the deep ocean. Only 8% follows the path of the hypothesized conveyor route. There is no discrete thermalhaline conveyor in the North Atlantic to be interrupted.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090513130942.htm
Zombie unwitting footsoldiers of CAGW like William Astley believe the climate to also be zombie-like, passive, dead. Any climate change has to come from brute forcing, right? Either CO2 or astrophysical cycle-de-jour, but that’s a minor detail. You’re basically on the same side.
The climate debate is not between CO2 and the rest. Its between passive climate (CO2, solar, magnetic astrophysical brute forcing etc.) or active internally dynamic climate. To change, does it need brute forcing from outside? Or as a dynamic system does it change itself?
If the deep ocean was passive and static as you believe, then it would be anoxic. Like the Black Sea is, which is enclosed. That’s why it’s called the Black Sea. But its not, it is oxygenated. This is because deep water is flowing. If water flows, it follows that it flows somewhere. The ThermoHaline Circulation is no myth, and if it turns out to be much more complex than previously thought, this only underlines further the role of nonlinear chaotic dynamics in driving ocean circulation and making the 97% of climate that lies in the ocean chaotically unstable. That’s where climate change comes from. Not CO2, or the stars.