Yet another prediction of doom over Greenland ice melt and the AMOC that we can ignore

From the “fresh melt water will disrupt the planet” department, except that this ongoing alarm has already been debunked by NASA, see: NASA refutes Mann and Rahmstorf – Finds Atlantic ‘Conveyor Belt’ Not Slowing

436189main_atlantic20100325a-full[1]
Illustration depicting the overturning circulation of the global ocean. Throughout the Atlantic Ocean, the circulation carries warm waters (red arrows) northward near the surface and cold deep waters (blue arrows) southward. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Melting Greenland ice sheet may affect global ocean circulation, future climate

University of South Florida and international scientists find influx of freshwater could disrupt the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an important component of global ocean circulation

TAMPA, Fla. (Jan. 22, 2016) – Scientists from the University of South Florida, along with colleagues in Canada and the Netherlands, have determined that the influx of fresh water from the Greenland ice sheet is “freshening” the North Atlantic Ocean and could disrupt the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), an important component of global ocean circulation that could have a global effect. Researchers say it could impact the future climate in places such as portions of Europe and North America.

Their study on the influence of freshwater influx on Labrador Sea convection and Atlantic circulation is published in a new issue of the journal Nature Communications.

“We derived a new estimate of recent freshwater flux from Greenland using updated GRACE satellite data,” said USF professor Tim Dixon. “The data suggest that the influx of freshwater from Greenland is accelerating, and has changed the Labrador Sea in ways that could lead to a weakening of the AMOC.”

Freshwater flux from Greenland is composed of melt runoff from ice and tundra runoff as well as ice discharge (“calving” of icebergs). The amount of freshwater flux from Greenland was relatively stable from the late 1970’s to the mid 1990’s, and then began to increase. Increased freshwater flux could weaken the AMOC, resulting in a number of consequences, both local and global, said the researchers.

“Focused freshwater flux into the Labrador Sea has the potential to increase the buoyancy of surface waters and reduce formation of dense, deep water that helps drive the overturning circulation,” said co-author Don Chambers , USF College of Marine Science associate professor.

How much of the enhanced freshwater flux actually winds up in the Labrador Sea?

Because of the clockwise nature of ocean circulation around Greenland, most of the freshwater increase, up to 70 percent, is being driven toward the Labrador Sea, magnifying its impact and increasing the possibility of significant effects on the AMOC, said Qian Yang, the paper’s first author and a PhD student at USF whose dissertation, in part, includes this research.

According to the researchers, not only are changes in the AMOC difficult to measure, it’s also difficult to separate natural climatic variation from climate changes induced by human activity.

The potential consequences of a weakened AMOC include changes in climate.

“The AMOC transports a large amount of heat into the North Atlantic where it is given up to the atmosphere and helps regulate the climate in Europe and North America. The major effect of a slowing AMOC is expected to be cooler winters and summers around the North Atlantic, and small regional increases in sea level on the North American coast,” explained Chambers.

According to Dixon, the global impacts are less certain, but potentially more consequential.

“The AMOC and Gulf Stream are part of a complex global ocean circulation system that is still not completely understood,” said Dixon. “If human activities are starting to impact this system, it is a worrying sign that the scale of human impacts on the climate system may be reaching a critical point.”

Continued long-term observation is required to understand the impact of the freshwater influx.

“This shows the need to continue to look at different components of the climate system, including the ice sheets and oceans, in an integrated sense,” concluded Paul Myers, study co-author and Professor of Oceanography at the University of Alberta.

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January 22, 2016 6:43 pm

““This shows the need to continue to look at different components of the climate system, …”
Say what? They even conclude that global warming on other habitable exoplanets probably killed off aliens!!! Different components, S’truth!! Climate science looks a lot like the “kitchen sink” natchos at my favorite pub, including the red graphics. There is a web site somewhere that lists hundreds of things effected by every conceivable aspect of dangerous climate change.

Reply to  Gary Pearse
January 23, 2016 10:39 am

Hey, thanks for reminding me about that list, Gary.
Here it is:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

Reply to  Menicholas
January 23, 2016 4:10 pm

what a list.
how sad and funny at the same time.

higley7
January 22, 2016 6:56 pm

It has already been established, from sediment studies in the narrow Gulf Stream passage between the tip of Florida and Cuba, that the AMOC speeds up during ocean warming and slows with ocean cooling. This makes total sense in terms of the viscosity of water, warmer = faster, cooler = slower.

Pamela Gray
January 22, 2016 7:28 pm

Lordy. And I suppose they think they can calm the waters? Next they’ll be telling us they can walk on top of it.

Reply to  Pamela Gray
January 22, 2016 8:44 pm

Please don’t tell them i drive my F250 on the water every other day this time of year.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  John Robertson
January 22, 2016 9:57 pm

That’s done in Iceland.

January 22, 2016 7:33 pm

An influx of fresh thought would run amok with the flow of climate science, threatening the global circulation of grant money 😉

Paul of Alexandria
January 22, 2016 8:01 pm

Looking at the picture, the Greenland runoff should be entering the circulation right at the point where the water dives down and becomes the cold return stream. Is the lack of salt really enough to override the temperature WRT density difference, after dilution?

January 22, 2016 8:42 pm

But this gush of ice cold fresh water has happened.
As the ice sheet retreated north, what is now the MacKenzie River was blocked by the ice, a lake covering most of what is now the Northwest Territories of Canada formed.
Then when the ice gave way this lake drained rapidly and huge amounts of sediment were carried out into the Beaufort Sea.
So the feared deluge has already happened, how come these activists can produce no evidence for their fears?
Less than 20 000 years ago, should be no problem for these fabulists to fake up some “data”.

January 22, 2016 9:48 pm

doesn’t look like anyone here including Anthony actually read the paper…
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160122/ncomms10525/abs/ncomms10525.html

Patrick MJD
Reply to  David Sanger
January 22, 2016 10:00 pm

Results still based on a model. Meaningless garbage!

Lewis P Buckingham
Reply to  David Sanger
January 22, 2016 10:30 pm

‘We suggest that recent freshening in the vicinity of Greenland is reducing the formation of dense LSW, potentially weakening the AMOC. Recent observations are beginning to document declines in the AMOC62, 63, 64, consistent with our hypothesis. Longer time series will be required to confirm this link, but our preliminary results suggest that detailed studies of Labrador Sea hydrography and proximal sources of freshwater, including Greenland, have the potential to improve our understanding of AMOC variability and sensitivity to anthropogenic warming.’
The abstract itself is full of caveats and IMO rightly so.
‘ have the potential to improve our understanding of AMOC variability and sensitivity to anthropogenic warming.’ is very carefully written so that if AW proves to be dwarfed in its effect on ‘AMOC variability’,then the statement still stands true.

Reply to  David Sanger
January 22, 2016 10:42 pm

What is your objection?
I can read the paper, your mind not so much.

January 22, 2016 10:58 pm

Count the “could” ‘s.
http://i66.tinypic.com/206kahw.png
I count six.
So it could: disrupt (x2), lead to weakening, impact, have global effect, or weaken …based on whatever a large bolus of freshwater release into the Atlantic is capable of.
“Could” must be the climate pseudoscientistist’s favorite verb.
Could is a modal verb, it can mean in the past tense, as “Roger Bannister could run 1 mile in 4 minutes,” or “I could run really fast when I was young, but now I am old and can’t.” Both are affirmative of something that was reality in the past.
Or could is an auxiliary verb, where is is more like “might.” As in the AMOC might slow slow if….(such and such, like 10,000 H-bombs were simultaneously detonated in the North Atlantic).” But who wants to use might in a press release? Unless you need to add impact where there is little to none in the findings.
So the pseudoscientistist uses “could” when “might” would be a more correct choice. But “could” conveys a double, but subtle affirmative meaning in the past tense, but in the future tense… it is subject to all kinds of mischief.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
January 22, 2016 11:43 pm

+1

Wil Pretty
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
January 23, 2016 1:37 am

The English language is very rich in that it allows you to convey degrees of certainty by choice of words.
Greatest certainty is described – Definitely, will, does, is, very likely.
Lesser likely hood – probably, could, might
Probabilities less than 50% are the mirror image of the above descriptors with the word ‘not’ appended.
The principal exponent in the scientific field of quantifying documents was? Lord Darwin ( Asimov – Foundation Trilogy).
I would judge ‘could’ as 65%.
6 ‘coulds’ gives 65% ^ 6 = 7.5%
To allow for possible duplication one should double this = 15%
To commemorate Lord Dorwin, the accuracy of the paper should be described as % Dorwin.
i.e. 15% Dorwin. (unlikely?)

Wil Pretty
Reply to  Wil Pretty
January 23, 2016 1:40 am

Dorwin – not Darwin.

4TimesAYear
January 22, 2016 11:08 pm

Isn’t there a lot more to the ocean’s circulation than fresh/salt water? Like the spinning of the planet and tidal forces…convection currents…wind and storms? Never mind that it would probably take a lot more melting than what’s going on now – and the amount of time that would take.

mikewaite
January 23, 2016 1:12 am

The image at the top of the post of the global circulation pattern puzzles me somewhat . It shows the warm section of the current running up the eastern side of the Atlantic and returning as a cold subsurface current down the western side , ie down the east coast of the US .
However the recent sea surface temperature anomalies given in the ref pages here :
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/cmb/sst_analysis/images/monanomv2.png
show the warmer part of the North Atlantic running up the east coast of the US and a colder area between the British isles and Greenland.
Am I confusing anomalies , the difference between current temperature and the “normal” temperature , with the actual temperature .
However even the temperature map below the anomaly map on the WUWT reference page seems to show a warmer current running up alongside the Carolinas (lovely name) .
So, in short , has the global circulation map at the top of the post got the currents twisted in the North Atlantic or am I , as usual , just embarrassingly ignorant .

Reply to  mikewaite
January 23, 2016 1:30 am

The image at the top is very much a schematic diagramme, not an accurate chart of exactly where the currents are. For example, the warm current south of Cape of Good Hope is very narrow and close to the coast and runs quite fast, not as shown on the diagramme.
This in one of these pictures which should have “Not to be used for navigation” on it.
Also remember the blue coloured currents are at the bottom of the sea.

William Astley
January 23, 2016 1:57 am

Climate science is chock full of urban legends.
World Wide Discrete Ocean Conveyor Urban Legend
There is no discrete ocean circulation system for a melt pulse to interrupt. The silly picture drawing of a world covering thermal haline ‘conveyor’ system has no scientific basis. That urban legend develop from a picture Wally Broeker drew in a paper with zero scientific justification.
Interrupt to North Atlantic Drift Current has anything to do with cyclic abrupt climate change Urban Legend
The largest melt pulse in last 15,000 thousand years occurred more than 1000 years before the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event. It caused no cooling. Even if a melt pulsed could interrupt the North American drift current atmospheric/ocean modeling indicates Europe would only cool 2 to 3 degrees Celsius. The primary reason Europe is warmer than east coast of the US in the winter is the same reason why the west coast of the US is warmer than the east coast of the US in the winter. Due to the rotation of the earth the jet stream and the prevailing winds flow from west to east. The ocean warms in the summer due to increased sunlight in the summer. That heat is released in the winter and is more than order more than the heat released by the North Atlantic drift current.
Wally Broeker also started the myth that the cyclic abrupt climate change is caused by an interruption to the North Atlantic drift current. The North Atlantic drift current is not ‘part of the solution’ of what causes abrupt cyclic climate change.
The third urban legend in climate ‘science’ is that the planet’s climate has a ‘tendency’ to jump from one state to another. Rocks do not jump up hill. There is a physical reason for the Younger Dryas abrupt climate change at which time the planet when from interglacial warm to glacial cold with 70% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade, at a time when insolation at 65N was at a maximum. The Younger Dryas abrupt cooling ‘event’ lasted for 1200 years. During the YD abrupt cooling event the North Atlantic ocean froze each winter to a latitude of Northern Spain and the UK had an average temperature of -3C. Abrupt climate change is caused by a massive cyclic forcing change which is caused by an interruption to the solar cycle and is caused by a massive change to the geomagnetic field that occurs when the solar cycle restarts. Remember the burn marks on the surface of the earth on different continents and at different latitudes, that correlate in time with Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event? There is the largest change in C14 in the geological record that correlates with the YD abrupt climate change and there is geomagnetic excursion that correlates with the YD abrupt climate change event.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090513130942.htm

Cold Water Ocean Circulation Doesn’t Work As Expected
The familiar model of Atlantic ocean currents that shows a discrete “conveyor belt” of deep, cold water flowing southward from the Labrador Sea is probably all wet.
A 50-year-old model of ocean currents had shown this southbound subsurface flow of cold water forming a continuous loop with the familiar northbound flow of warm water on the surface, called the Gulf Stream.
“Everybody always thought this deep flow operated like a conveyor belt, but what we are saying is that concept doesn’t hold anymore,” said Duke oceanographer Susan Lozier. “So it’s going to be more difficult to measure these climate change signals in the deep ocean.”
But studies in the 1990s using submersible floats that followed underwater currents “showed little evidence of southbound export of Labrador sea water within the Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC),” said the new Nature report.
Scientists challenged those earlier studies, however, in part because the floats had to return to the surface to report their positions and observations to satellite receivers. That meant the floats’ data could have been “biased by upper ocean currents when they periodically ascended,” the report added.
To address those criticisms, Lozier and Bower launched 76 special Range and Fixing of Sound floats into the current south of the Labrador Sea between 2003 and 2006. Those “RAFOS” floats could stay submerged at 700 or 1,500 meters depth and still communicate their data for a range of about 1,000 kilometers using a network of special low frequency and amplitude seismic signals.
But only 8 percent of the RAFOS floats’ followed the conveyor belt of the Deep Western Boundary Current, according to the Nature report. About 75 percent of them “escaped” that coast-hugging deep underwater pathway and instead drifted into the open ocean by the time they rounded the southern tail of the Grand Banks.
Eight percent “is a remarkably low number in light of the expectation that the DWBC is the dominant pathway for Labrador Sea Water,” the researchers wrote.

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-source-of-europes-mild-climate

The Source of Europe’s Mild Climate
The notion that the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping Europe anomalously warm turns out to be a myth
If you grow up in England, as I did, a few items of unquestioned wisdom are passed down to you from the preceding generation. Along with stories of a plucky island race with a glorious past and the benefits of drinking unbelievable quantities of milky tea, you will be told that England is blessed with its pleasant climate courtesy of the Gulf Stream, that huge current of warm water that flows northeast across the Atlantic from its source in the Gulf of Mexico. That the Gulf Stream is responsible for Europe’s mild winters is widely known and accepted, but, as I will show, it is nothing more than the earth-science equivalent of an urban legend.
Recently, however, evidence has emerged that the Younger Dryas began long before the breach that allowed freshwater to flood the North Atlantic. What is more, the temperature changes induced by a shutdown in the conveyor are too small to explain what went on during the Younger Dryas. Some climatologists appeal to a large expansion in sea ice to explain the severe winter cooling. I agree that something of this sort probably happened, but it’s not at all clear to me how stopping the Atlantic conveyor could cause a sufficient redistribution of heat to bring on this vast a change.

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Gulf.pdf

Is the Gulf Stream responsible for Europe’s mild winters?
By R. SEAGER, D. S. BATTISTI, J. YIN, N. GORDON, N. NAIK, A. C. CLEMENT and M. A. CANE
It is widely believed by scientists and lay people alike that the transport of warm water north in the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift, and its release to the atmosphere, is a major reason why western Europe’s winters are so much milder (as much as 15–20 degC) than those of eastern North America (Fig. 1). The idea appears to have been popularized by M. F. Maury in his book The physical geography of the sea and its meteorology (1855) which went through many printings in the United States and the British Isles and was translated into three languages.
meridional advection being an especially strong cooling over Asia. Since western Europe is indeed warmed by westerly advection off the Atlantic, we next assess how the surface fluxes over the Atlantic are maintained.
In conclusion, while OHT warms winters on both sides of the North Atlantic Ocean by a few degC, the much larger temperature difference across the ocean, and that between the maritime areas of north-western Europe and western North America, are explained by the interaction between the atmospheric circulation and seasonal storage and release of heat by the ocean. Stationary waves greatly strengthen the temperature
contrast across the North Atlantic and are themselves heavily influenced by the net effect of orography. In contrast, transport of heat by the ocean has a minor influence on the wintertime zonal asymmetries of temperature. Even in the zonal mean, OHT has a small effect compared to those of seasonal heat storage and release by the ocean and atmospheric heat transport. In retrospect these conclusions may seem obvious, but we are unaware of any published explanation of why winters in western Europe are mild
that does not invoke poleward heat transport by the ocean as an important influence that augments its maritime climate.
In summary, the east–west asymmetry of winter climates on the seaboards of the North Atlantic is created by north-westerly advection over eastern North America and by zonal advection into Europe. The Pacific Ocean has an analogous arrangement with ….

Russell
January 23, 2016 3:09 am

Montreal”s contribution for adding fresh melt. PS and this is the Montreal Mayor D. Coderre that this week refuses to allow the western pipe line from Alberta to eastern Canada. .http://globalnews.ca/news/2330913/why-is-montreal-dumping-8-billion-litres-of-sewage-into-the-st-lawrence/

climanrecon
January 23, 2016 4:26 am

The importance of the Gulf Stream to European climate has been (and continues to be) vastly exaggerated, so says Richard Seager, a fully paid-up member of Team Alarm:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/
Without the Gulf Stream, Western European coasts would have roughly the same climate as Seattle (which doesn’t have a warming ocean current), i.e. pretty much unchanged.

emsnews
January 23, 2016 5:00 am

Goodness gracious, if we ever get as warm as the Medieval Warm Period, farmers might move back into Greenland again!

Bernie
January 23, 2016 6:22 am

The data suggest …
One one of the most unprecedented worm-word constructs. Can data suggest? Don’t researchers suggest that the data provides supporting evidence? Don’t activists suggest that we restructure the accumulated wealth of the entire world because models show “global temperature” is changing at an unprecedented rate, and may have serious social and economic consequences many decades from now? I suggest the immediate social and economic consequences of their approach will affect our children NOW. Must we disinherit them tomorrow for what might befall our grandchildren? Is there no hope they can solve the problem of survival on this nondiscriminatory planet on their own, as have humans for hundreds of thousands of years?

Pamela Gray
January 23, 2016 6:31 am

If multiple attempts to discover overturning circulation disruption has resulted in nada, who the frick allowed this granted study to proceed??? I wonder if it was a granting body that was formed simply to grant each other’s projects? I know how this works. The application author excuses him/herself from the meeting so that the voting isn’t biased. Then he/she comes back in while another application author excuses him/herself from the meeting so that the voting on that project isn’t biased. And on it goes.

Hocus Locus
January 23, 2016 7:30 am

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r103/HocusLocus_photos/OceanFlowDymaxion.png
The Masked Mercator to Dymaxion-izer strikes again! Print, cut out and fold over flaps to create an icosahedron to put on your desk. Unfortunately this projection’s whole purpose is to keep landmasses together so this demonstration of ocean flows fails miserably. But such quibbles do not discourage the Masked Mercator to Dymaxion-izer.

William Astley
January 23, 2016 7:54 am

This is one of Wally Broeker’s urban legend papers the ‘Angry Beast’ paper, complete with the elementary school picture drawing that illustrates the deep climatology concept (urban legend no logic to justify the statement) that ‘climate’ is an angry beast.
P.S. There are burn marks on the surface of the earth that correlate with the last cyclic abrupt climate change the ‘Younger Dryas’ abrupt climate change. Climate is not an ‘angry beast’. The sun is the angry beast. The planet resists climate forcing changes. The cyclic massive abrupt climate change that is observed in the paleo climate record has a physical cause (Big revelation/epiphany, we live in a physical world, things happen in the physical world, including cyclic abrupt climate change and the glacial/interglacial cycle, for physical reasons, there are no magic wands.)
The idiotic cult of CAGW scientists have no idea what is currently happening to the sun and have no idea how what is currently happening to the sun will cause abrupt cooling. It outside the realm of scientific possibility/imagination that the sun and stars could be significantly different that the standard model.
There are hundreds of astronomical observations in peer review papers that support the assertion that the sun, stars, galaxies, and ‘quasars’ are significantly different than the standard models. The difference between cosmological theory and observation is comical/surreal, astonishing. Some of the cosmological observational paradoxes have been known and ignored for almost 30 years. There are now month by month new observational paradoxes concerning every logical pillar of the standard cosmological theory. An intelligent undergraduate student with no prejudice and a little imagination could solve the cosmological ‘puzzle’ using the available piles and piles of observations in a fortnight.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=23&startmonth=12&startyear=1969&starttime=00%3A00&endday=23&endmonth=01&endyear=2016&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
Oh well, well, well, back to talking about Wally Broeker and his friends’ climatology urban legends.
See Figure 5. which is Wally’s friend’s picture of an angry beast. Note there is zero explanation as to what causes the glacial/interglacial cycle or what causes cyclic abrupt climate change, the essential message of the ‘paper’ is climate is ‘angry’ beast’ because the paleo climatologists have no clue as to the physical reason for the glacial/interglacial cycle or cyclic abrupt climate change.
As noted above the North Atlantic ocean probe data (only 8% of the deep ocean probes moved into the deep ocean 92% moved into the general ocean) indicates that there is no discrete worldwide thermohaline circulation ocean conveyor. Atmospheric/ocean modeling indicates the heat transported by the North Atlantic drift current is an order of magnitude less than the summer heat that is released and transported by the prevailing winds in the winter to explain why the west coast of Europe is warmer than the east coast of the US.
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/FACULTY/POPP/Broecker%201999%20GSA%20Today.pdf

What If the Conveyor Were to Shut Down? Reflections on a
Possible Outcome of the Great Global Experiment
One must keep in mind that as the physics of mode changes is so poorly understood, diagrams such as that in Figure 3 are unlikely to portray what would happen if the Earth system were to undergo a mode switch. The consequences of such a change defy prediction.
William: Translation, paleo climatology is chock full of urban legends. Paleo climatologists have no clue what causes the glacial/interglacial cycle and what causes cyclic abrupt climate change. Paleo climatologists have spent 20 years getting proxy data and analyzing proxy data and creating urban legend mechanisms, such as the earth has a tendency to ‘jump’ from one state to another.
MODELS TO THE RESCUE?
But wouldn’t predictions based on conveyor shutdowns carried out in linked ocean-atmosphere climate models be more informative than analogies to past changes? I would contend that to date no model is up to the task. No one under-stands what is required to cool Greenland by 16 °C and the tropics by 4 ± 1 °C, to lower mountain snowlines by 900 m, to create an ice sheet covering much of North America, to reduce the atmosphere’s CO2 content by 30%, or to raise the dust rain in many parts of Earth by an order of magnitude. If these changes were not documented in the climate record, they would never enter the minds of the climate dynamics community. Models that purportedly simulate glacial climates do so only because key boundary conditions are prescribed (the size and elevation of the ice sheets, sea ice extent, sea surface temperatures, atmospheric CO2 content, etc.). In addition, some of these models have sensitivities whose magnitude many would challenge. What the paleoclimatic record tells us is that Earth’s climate system is capable of jumping from one mode of operation to another. These modes are self-sustaining and involve major differences in mean global temperature, in rain-fall pattern, and in atmospheric dustiness.
In my estimation, we lack even a first-order explanation as to how the various elements of the Earth system interact to generate these alternate modes.

Latitude
January 23, 2016 8:06 am

“The data suggest that the influx of freshwater from Greenland is accelerating, and has changed the Labrador Sea in ways that could lead to a weakening of the AMOC.”
..and the measurements says you’re full of it…
http://www.bio.gc.ca/science/data-donnees/archive/woec/labsea/images/ls_s-ta1.gif

Russell
Reply to  Latitude
January 23, 2016 8:23 am

When you Alarm-est explain now 400 feet of solid new ice on Greenland 10 k from the coast. and do not give me this location has more but the other has and the land is rising and it,s cloudy ..>http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/04/us/world-war-ii-planes-found-in-greenland-in-ice-260-feet-deep.html

Russell
Reply to  Marcus
January 23, 2016 9:09 am

Marcus I was wondering when you would wake up. I can now stop posting and go back to watching CNN.

January 23, 2016 8:53 am

What seems to be missing from the conversation is why this circulation exists. The reason is that evaporation exceeds precipitation in the tropics and precipitation exceeds evaporation in polar regions. If the circulation did not refill the tropical oceans over time all of the Earth’s ocean water would collect at the poles. Gravity fixes this by pushing water down at the poles which pushes tropical oceans up from below.

Reply to  co2isnotevil
January 23, 2016 8:59 am

Isn’t it just the 2nd Law in action?

Reply to  dbstealey
January 23, 2016 9:09 am

dbstealey,
The second law about entropy. The only relevant law here is Newton’s law of gravity (or GR if you prefer). Of course, entropy and equilibrium are always connected.

Reply to  co2isnotevil
January 23, 2016 1:34 pm

Apologies for not being clearer. What’s happening is that water is circulating from warmer to cooler areas. That’s why talk of ocean circulation ‘shutting down’ is nonsense.

Reply to  co2isnotevil
January 23, 2016 10:49 am

Hey, do not forget about all the excentrifugal forz at the equator. Makes heap big bulgie bulgie, water get fat, lazy. Lazy water not like de coldy coldy. Makes de warmy warmy.

Steve Garcia
January 23, 2016 1:10 pm

One of the very nastiest parts of this oceanic conveyor silliness is that they NEVER show the Gulf of Mexico involved in the N Atlantic flow. They CAN’T, because if they did, they’d have to acknowledge that the Gulf Stream is driven not by sinking waters off Iceland but by winds and the Coriolis effect due to the rotation of the Earth (and deflected eastward by the N American coast). To stop all of that requires the Earth to stop spinning. As long as the planet rotates, the angular momentum MUST drive water north, with a nudge to the east.
The current flow IN the Gulf is what picks up the heat. If all that heat energy didn’t get transported up to N Europe, where would it go to?
Anytime you hear talk of the oceanic conveyor that does not include discussion of the heated water slowly circulating in the Gulf of Mexico, you know they are lying. And any map that doesn’t include that loop is lying.

Reply to  Steve Garcia
January 23, 2016 7:12 pm

Imagine the amount of angular momentum in all of the water in each of the ocean basins?
And adding some tiny amount of fresh water at the surface in one spot is going to bring that to a grinding halt?
Those maps of the conveyor loop are not to be confused with currents, but are more of a gradual trend in flow, superimposed on the much more energetic pattern of oceanic gyres. If they even exist as mapped out in this and similar diagrams. Seems to be some disagreement on this. Lots of people believing something does not make it so. I would like to see the original research demonstrating this flow that occurs where no current exists.

Bill Illis
Reply to  Steve Garcia
January 24, 2016 8:13 am

The Gulf Stream actually starts next the coast of Africa at the equator. The Trade Winds and Coriolis effect, start the Gulf Stream on its journey.
One would have to shut-off the Trade Winds and then the mid-latitude Westerly winds or decrease the sea level next to Florida to change the Gulf Stream.
[Note in many parts of the ice ages, the Gulf Stream probably did not flow into the Gulf of Mexico and then around Florida because the ocean wasn’t deep enough next to Florida at this time because of sea level decline. A big ocean current like the Gulf Stream needs at least 200 metres of ocean depth to flow properly. When there is not a deep enough channel to allow continuous flow, the large ocean current will find the next best option because all the water coming in behind has to go somewhere. The Gulf Stream in many parts of the ice ages probably flowed out around the Caribbean Islands and then dissipated rather quickly in the mid-Atlantic rather than its current course. As sea level went up and down, it probably took different tracks at different times –
which just MIGHT just be the very BEST explanation for the Dansgaard–Oeschger events and the Dryas events in the northern hemisphere. The Gulf Stream alternated between flowing up into the north Atlantic and/or dissipating in the mid-central Atlantic as sea level changes alternately shut down or opened the Florida channel for the Gulf Stream flow.]

ulriclyons
January 24, 2016 3:49 am

“The amount of freshwater flux from Greenland was relatively stable from the late 1970’s to the mid 1990’s, and then began to increase. Increased freshwater flux could weaken the AMOC, resulting in a number of consequences, both local and global, said the researchers.”
The increased melt from the mid 1990’s was due to an increase in negative North Atlantic Oscillation. Negative NAO episodes drive slow AMOC simultaneously with Greenland melt events, e.g. summer 2012. (click on graph to enlarge):
http://www.rapid.ac.uk/
“According to the researchers, not only are changes in the AMOC difficult to measure, it’s also difficult to separate natural climatic variation from climate changes induced by human activity.”
Not so, increased forcing of the climate increases positive NAO. What really needs explaining is why negative NAO increased from the mid 1990’s, the complete reverse of what increased CO2 is expected to do.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html

ulriclyons
Reply to  ulriclyons
January 24, 2016 4:15 am

There is only one explanation that makes any sense to me, the decline in solar wind strength since the mid 1990’s:
http://snag.gy/HxdKY.jpg