Gulf Stream slowdown to spare Europe from worst of climate change
From the UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX and Dr. Richard Tol.
Europe will be spared the worst economic impacts of climate change by a slowing down of the Gulf Stream, new research predicts.
Scientists have long suggested that global warming could lead to a slowdown – or even shutdown – of the vast system of ocean currents, including the Gulf Stream, that keeps Europe warm.
Known as the Thermohaline Circulation, this system operates like a conveyor belt, transporting warm water from the tropics to Europe, where evaporation decreases salinity and density so that the water sinks.
As the world warms, melting icecaps and increased rainfall are widely predicted to slow this process down by flooding oceans with cold freshwater.
Some experts even fear that the process could shut down altogether, plunging Europe into a new ice age.
However, a new study by the University of Sussex, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and the University of California, Berkeley finds that, rather than cooling Europe, a slowdown of the Thermohaline Circulation would mean the continent still warms, but less quickly than other parts of the world.
This would lead to a rise in welfare standards in Europe, concludes the research, which is published in the leading economics journal the American Economic Review.
Professor Tol, Professor of Economics in the School of Business, Management and Economics at the University of Sussex, said: “Cooling is probably a good bit more harmful than warming, particularly in Europe. People rightly fear that climate change would cause a new ice age.
“Fortunately, our study finds no cooling at all. Instead, we find slower warming: a boon for Europeans.”
Of course, as ocean currents redistribute rather than create heat, slower warming for Europe means slightly accelerated warming elsewhere.
The study, therefore, adds to a growing body of evidence predicting a rich/poor divide in the climate change stakes. Developing countries will be less able to cope with rising sea levels, for example, and – as this research suggests – may warm faster than other, more developed parts of the world.
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It’s better than we thought
Three new climate studies indicate that our long-held belief about the Gulf Stream’s role in tempering Europe’s winters may not be correct. Yet the studies themselves do not agree.
From SCI AM. Yeh I know its crap but so is this science.
google —- studies on effect of gulf stream
Very interesting
Press release now corrected.
Note that this is an economics paper in an economics journal. We take the climate models and scenarios as given (albeit with some editorializing) and study the economic implications of alternative futures.
You’re welcome to bitch what you like about the climate science, but it has nothing to do with us.
…not true Richard
Climate science is all over the place…..you had to pick and choose which models and scenarios
The choice rapidly narrows when you impose the conditions that (a) you have a comparable pair of scenarios with and without thermohaline slowdown and (b) data are accessible.
…and you choose the conditions….exactly my point
Not saying it’s a good or bad choice….only that someone had to choose
These series of images will show you the REAL Gulf Stream (not the climate change Gulf Stream but the actual real one).
It starts right next to Africa in the Equatorial Atlantic. It is driven by the Trade Winds just like the ENSO is in the equatorial Pacific.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/equatlspdcurnowcast.gif
It then runs up against the South American coast and gets deflected north-west by the shape of the continental shelf here (just like all the Ocean Gyres do on the rest of the planet).
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/nbrazlspdcurnowcast.gif
It then moves into the InterAmerican Seas and the Gulf of Mexico where it follows the mid-depth ocean channels. The ocean needs to be about 200 metres deep for a good ocean current like the Gulf Stream to flow and it seeks out these little choke-points in the Caribbean Islands and the west-side of Cuba and the flow stream next to Florida. It is squeezed in by the Bahama Islands because it is too shallow here. The Gulf Stream will often form a loop in the Gulf of Mexico because there is just enough ocean depth here to allow the flow to continue in a loop. It is going to continue flowing because there is the weight of ALL that water flowing in behind starting all the way next to Africa. The pressure keeps it moving.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/intramspdcurnowcast.gif
Topography. Note the areas which are just that little bit deeper here that allow the flow to continue but it is squeezed in wherever the continental shelf gets too shallow.
http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/atlantic/img_topo2/florida2.jpg
It then flows out into the Atlantic, changing course to the north-east now because the prevailing winds in the mid-latitudes are now west-to-east versus at the tropics latitudes where they are east-to-west.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/glfstrspdcurnowcast.gif
The warmth of the Gulf Stream (starting at the equator next to Africa) now flows all the way up into the Arctic Ocean north of Russia keeping even Nova Zemlya Islands warmer than they really should be.
Now the Gulf Stream is less like a tight current but more of a general movement of ocean, the North Atlantic Drift and it literally flows right into the entire Arctic Ocean basin. It DOES NOT stop here and cool off and sink like climate science thinks That is a big myth. The ocean does not do ANY sinking until it is right under the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean basin. It then spends HUNDREDS OF YEARS in the Arctic Ocean basin at the bottom at 4000 metres depth when it is finally pushed out by all the sinking water above become part of the bottom water in the AMOC.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/arcticsstnowcast.gif
http://90-north.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/bathymetric_map_Arctic_Ocean.jpg
http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0012821X15001442-gr001.jpg
How is the residence time determined in what is a continuous process?
Anthony,
The following statement in the article by Tol on circulation patterns of ocean currents worldwide is
not correct:
“…where evaporation decreases salinity and density so that the water sinks…”
I assert that as water vapor escapes from the surface of a given volume of salt water, its salinity increases
and with it the density also increases thus accounting for heavier water to sink. The statement is rectified simply by changing “decreases” to read “increases.”
WD