Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Yesterday’s “The Day After Tomorrow” climate explainer’s excuse for cold winters is back – research suggests that the North Atlantic current is weaker than anytime for the last 1000 years
Climate change dials down Atlantic Ocean heating system
By Victoria Gill
Science correspondent, BBC News
11 April 2018
A significant shift in the system of ocean currents that helps keep parts of Europe warm could send temperatures in the UK lower, scientists have found.
They say the Atlantic Ocean circulation system is weaker now than it has been for more than 1,000 years – and has changed significantly in the past 150.
The study, in the journal Nature, says it may be a response to increased melting ice and is likely to continue.
Researchers say that could have an impact on Atlantic ecosystems.
Scientists involved in the Atlas project – the largest study of deep Atlantic ecosystems ever undertaken – say the impact will not be of the order played out in the 2004 Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow.
But they say changes to the conveyor-belt-like system – also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc) – could cool the North Atlantic and north-west Europe and transform some deep-ocean ecosystems.
That could also affect temperature-sensitive species like coral, and even Atlantic cod.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/science-environment-43713719
The abstract of the paper;
Observed fingerprint of a weakening Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation
L. Caesar, S. Rahmstorf, A. Robinson, G. Feulner & V. Saba
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC)—a system of ocean currents in the North Atlantic—has a major impact on climate, yet its evolution during the industrial era is poorly known owing to a lack of direct current measurements. Here we provide evidence for a weakening of the AMOC by about 3 ± 1 sverdrups (around 15 per cent) since the mid-twentieth century. This weakening is revealed by a characteristic spatial and seasonal sea-surface temperature ‘fingerprint’—consisting of a pattern of cooling in the subpolar Atlantic Ocean and warming in the Gulf Stream region—and is calibrated through an ensemble of model simulations from the CMIP5 project. We find this fingerprint both in a high-resolution climate model in response to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, and in the temperature trends observed since the late nineteenth century. The pattern can be explained by a slowdown in the AMOC and reduced northward heat transport, as well as an associated northward shift of the Gulf Stream. Comparisons with recent direct measurements from the RAPID project and several other studies provide a consistent depiction of record-low AMOC values in recent years.
Read more (paywalled): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0006-5
A NASA study in 2010 using direct satellite measurement rather than models suggested there is no evidence the North Atlantic Current is slowing.
NASA Study Finds Atlantic ‘Conveyor Belt’ Not Slowing
03.25.10
PASADENA, Calif. – New NASA measurements of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the global ocean conveyor belt that helps regulate climate around the North Atlantic, show no significant slowing over the past 15 years. The data suggest the circulation may have even sped up slightly in the recent past.
…
Until recently, the only direct measurements of the circulation’s strength have been from ship-based surveys and a set of moorings anchored to the ocean floor in the mid-latitudes. Willis’ new technique is based on data from NASA satellite altimeters, which measure changes in the height of the sea surface, as well as data from Argo profiling floats. The international Argo array, supported in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, includes approximately 3,000 robotic floats that measure temperature, salinity and velocity across the world’s ocean.
With this new technique, Willis was able to calculate changes in the northward-flowing part of the circulation at about 41 degrees latitude, roughly between New York and northern Portugal. Combining satellite and float measurements, he found no change in the strength of the circulation overturning from 2002 to 2009. Looking further back with satellite altimeter data alone before the float data were available, [Josh] Willis found evidence that the circulation had sped up about 20 percent from 1993 to 2009. This is the longest direct record of variability in the Atlantic overturning to date and the only one at high latitudes.
The latest climate models predict the overturning circulation will slow down as greenhouse gases warm the planet and melting ice adds freshwater to the ocean. “Warm, freshwater is lighter and sinks less readily than cold, salty water,” Willis explained.
For now, however, there are no signs of a slowdown in the circulation. “The changes we’re seeing in overturning strength are probably part of a natural cycle,” said Willis. “The slight increase in overturning since 1993 coincides with a decades-long natural pattern of Atlantic heating and cooling.”
…
Read more: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/atlantic20100325.html
One model based study suggests a 15% slowdown, a direct measurement suggests a 20% acceleration. Settled science anyone?
Throw stuff on the wall ….maybe it will stick ….
exactly…..”The pattern can be explained by”…just about anything we can make up
Recycle, recycle, recycle. Its the green mantra, they apply it to everything including their science and politics.
But if they say it often enough it MUST be true right?
And of course it can’t possibly be due to the natural and historically repeating switch of the NAO from warm to cold which apparently has happened in the past without me ever having to jump in the SUV and rev up the motor.
I heard this as a sound bite on the news. Since I was driving, I did a face-palm instead of a face-plant.
Probably just another case of Climate Science De-Jour
Her story had 22 sentences; 7 ‘could’, 1 ‘may’, 1 ‘likely’ and 1 ‘model’ so the level of confidence is really —-!!
Just the typical green garbage regurgitated ad nauseam!
The green garbage which the BBC posted online yesterday now appears in today’s main news on BBC Radio 4.
Throw stuff at the wall and call the resulting mess science.
Last week my son sailed from Miami to Alice Town on the island of Bimini. He arrived nearly 20 miles north of his intended destination. It wasn’t because he’s a poor sailor, it was because the Gulf Stream is currently flowing a little stronger than usual.
This article is just another example of fake science news.
No GPS?
Meanwhile, over at Accuweather, from the usual suspects:
If carbon emissions continue to rise unchecked, half of the plant and animal species in the world’s most important natural places are at risk of local extinction by the turn of the century, according to a new study conducted by the University of East Anglia (UEA), the James Cook University (JCU) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
If little human effort is put into diminishing carbon emissions, there could be 4.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century. …
What is this carbon stuff and who is emitting it?
But, but, but …
We were told that “real scientists” never, ever use the “catastrophe” term! That “CAGW” is an invented term that only well-paid (er, oil-industry) flat-earth skeptics invented for propaganda!
If a lot of human effort is put into increasing carbon dioxide emissions, there could be 4.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century. Could. No-one guarantees that.
It seems that the next alarmist target is less than 1.5K of warming, since they understand that it takes ages to warm the planet by 2K, even if we do our best to get there. But we’ll see. Or those who live, will see some of the warming.
I’m really tired of this playbook. They know they can push this alarmist stuff without no prominent backslash. It only stops when people finally get bored with projections. And that takes probably 50 years or so.
Have you noticed, by the way, how they use the term ‘at risk of local extinction’. Such weaseling is always unscientific. How could you deny, even afterwards, that there wasn’t a risk of local ‘extinction’. And why would you trust a study that WWF had it’s fingers in? It is like asking an NGO whether it thinks it is doing important work. Of course it says so!
This sort of nonsense should be actionable, not for individuals posting here, but for accredited institutions of higher learning. Promulgate nonsense and your accreditation goes poof!
re: Phillip Bratby April 11, 2018 at 10:45 pm
“What is this carbon stuff and who is emitting it?”
Lucy.
Where do they get this 4.5C nonsense? That’s more than even the IPCC’s worst case scenario for CO2 doubling, and they aren’t predicting doubling by the end of the century.
They never will admit that the variable is the Sun – and the sunspot cycle.
Ken Mitchell
You’re trying to convince me that the Sun does stuff, right?
Naaahhhh…..CO2 does stuff, the Sun’s just there.
OK guys……where’s the sarcasm off switch?
The Sun is _SO_ obvious that it’s too simplistic an explanation for the “intelligentsia” to acknowledge. Because if it’s obvious, then we don’t have to pay big bucks and lots of “respect” to them to explain it to poor little us.
But sometimes, the simplest explanation is the correct one. Or at least, it deserves consideration…..
Blaming it on the sun doesn’t give the eco-fascists the excuse they need to justify grabbing even more power for themselves.
Well, a 35% variation in the estimates is closer than the 300% variation in the IPCC’s estimates of CO2 sensitivity. The differences between the model giving 15% slowing and the actual measurement showing 20% increase would indicate a few minor problems with the model.
Blasphemy!
If your theory (model) and reality differ then obviously reality is wrong. 🙂
Yes but this is Edinburgh University … with plenty of committed climate alarmists ….. they were joint authors of a paper that claimed that Sand Eel numbers off the coast of Scotland had plummeted as a result of climate change .. they based this on a reduction of the number of Sand Eels that Shags (marine bird) were feeding their young and automatically attributed it to ‘climate change’ – actually stating it was “most likely” as a result of climate change.
Oddly (or perhaps Unsurprisingly) despite this statement, there was no evidence or record of the sea temperatures changing or having changed ….
Equally curious, to make this statement they had to ignore 2 in-depth studies that had been carried out by the Scottish Government and the British Government and both of which found incontrovertible evidence that the decline in Sand Eel numbers was a direct result of over-fishing by Scandinavian fishing boats.
I challenged them over this claim, pointing out the Scottish and British government studies, with the result that they ignore and refuse to communicate with me.
But hey, why let incontrovertible FACTS get in the way of a tasty piece of Climate Alarmism – be that Sand Eels or choosing the output of ‘models’ rather than the recorded facts of North Atlantic and the Gulf Stream. Edinburgh used to have a great reputation , at this rate I think they are in danger of seeing that disappear.
They need an excuse for both the lack of warming now, and the very possible cooling coming. But, CO2 is still in control. Riiiiiiight.
Bruce Cobb
Listen mate, you could make an armoury of William Wallace broadswords out of the blades of grass on my lawn (lawn, that’s a good one!) and it’s only early spring in the UK.
CO2 is in control, just not the way the moronic greens imagine it is.
Co-author, S. Rahmstorf, climate alarmist extraordinaire….you need read no further….
Doug MacKenzie
Awwww…..come on. He’s only planning for his grandkids, and great grankids futures.
My parents said, we fought WW2 for your freedom, we’ve done our bit, get on with it.
How selfish were my parents?
And this generation is obviously going to have to fight WWF for our children’s freedom!
Will the WWF bring Hulk Hogan out of retirement?
How convenient that this supposed conveyor belt cooling will affect more parts of the world where people care about Global Warming, like North America and Europe. That way the warmists already have a plausible deniability card in the pocket to save face value.
Why is it……nothing is ever recovering from the LIA…..maybe slower is normal
BBC
Next?
+++……..well, whatever.
Award yourself a score, you deserve the luxury for that comment.
Quite. Frankly, and on principle, if it comes from the BBC, I automatically assume it to be a lie. It the BBC told me it was raining, I’d be compelled to go outside and check.
BBC has always stood for Biased Broadcasting Service (viz the attempt to censor Richard Dimbleby’s broadcast from Bergen Belsen in April 1945, which was only overturned, after four days, because Richard the most famous British war correspondent, threatened to resign if it was not broadcast). The only new development is that over the last few years the bias has become more blatant, and is some cases, such as “climate change”, or “anti-Trump” and “anti-Brexit”. In the case of “Climate change”, as in the case of the Balen report into its anti-Israel bias, the BBC is prepared to use taxpayers’ money to defend its position in court.
But bias is one thing. Accuracy is another. The BBC no longer appears to value its worldwide reputation for accuracy. Even when evidence is presented to the Corporation that something that has been broadcast is untrue no correction appears or, if it does, it is tucked away so carefully as to be unnoticeable.
Recently Olga Guerin, their star Middle East reporter, devoted a whole program to the arrest and disappearance, for over a year, of an Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood supporter with the accusation that she had been abducted and “disappeared” by the police or secret police. Within hours newspapers and TV stations in Cairo were able to interview the lady, who the BBC had claimed had been abducted. She was living openly with her husband, in another part of Cairo.
So far as I know the BBC has never issued a correction because to do so might damage the Corporation’s
anti-Sisi credentials.
An honest scientist would have concluded that the evidence proved that the models were wrong on every level.
It is my understanding that the BBC (in the UK), the CBC (in Canada) and the ABC (in Australia) are funded with the taxpayers’ money. If that is correct, then I for the life of me cannot understand why their respective governments allow these broadcasters to be biased. Should these govts not have a responsibility to the taxpayers to ensure that taxpayers’ money goes to unbiased middle-of-the-road reporting?
The very idea that tax money is being used this way to mislead the public on the subject of climate (or anything else) would be something I would have a very hard time tolerating if I lived in one of these countries. Here in the U.S., there is not much govt can do about biased reporting because of the news outlets’ constitutional right to freedom of the press and the fact that they are not funded by tax dollars. To what extent news outlets in the UK, Canada and Australia have the right to press freedoms, I do not know. In exchange for tax money however, it seems to be that there should be requirements or standards that the BBC, CBC and ABC should adhere to if claims of bias are to be avoided.
Any feedback on this from one or more of these countries is appreciated.
The broadcasters follow the political mantra.
The voters / taxpayer only fund them indirectly, it is the government that allocates the funding.
As the Rolling Stones say, you can’t always get what you want.
Regards
The funding for the CBC comes from the government and the government loves the idea of a massive carbon tax to “save” the world’s climate from Canada’s tiny share of world emissions. This is among the worst uses of my tax dollars–and there are many poor uses of them.
Why would they not be biased? Governments need problems to solve, and the bigger and more dangerous, the more they can spend to save us from these problems. They can’t get enough money to satisfy themselves dealing with garden-variety problems, so bigger problems must found or manufactured.
Government – in general – never did want any problems they could solve. They would much rather spend money continuously ‘trying’ to solve problems and never quite succeeding. If they actually solved a problem they wouldn’t have anything else to do and that would violate the first law of Bureaucracy – which is to perpetuate itself. MUCH harder to justify a job where there is literally nothing to do!
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
― H.L. Mencken
Broadcasters are biased because politicians are biased.
Laughably, the left wing believe the BBC is Right wing biased, despite it being populated by left wing media luvvies.
Jeremy Vine, are you listening?
To many on the left. There’s communism, and everything else is right wing.
“It is my understanding that the BBC (in the UK), the CBC (in Canada) and the ABC (in Australia) are funded with the taxpayers’ money.”
You forgot PBS (TV) and NPR (Radio) in the US. For some reason, they also have a reporting bias problem.
@RicDre. Yes, I know. I remembered them after I posted the comment above. I say if NPR and PBS can’t observe standards of unbiased reporting, then the fed govt should be able to justify pulling the plug on their funding. They can go to Bloomberg or George Soros and Tom Steyer for their funding. Then they can be as biased as they want.
@CD in Wisconsin
The funny thing about PBS and NPR is that on the one hand they claim that 90% of their funding comes from public donations and they don’t need government funding but on the other hand if you threaten to pull their government funding they through a hissy fit.
Oops, I meant they “throw a hissy fit”.
In Australia we also have tax payer funded SBS, not quite a left leaning and nor as vile as the ABC, but not far off. In the UK, the BBC is funded by a license fee which you must pay if you have a TV, mains powered radio and latterly live streaming of content on PC’s and smart devices. It’s BGP145 annually and you can be fined and even imprisoned for not paying it. Some ~200,000 people are convicted for non-payment every year and some ~200 people go to prison for repeat offences. Crazy!
Is that true? I’ve never paid anything to those totalitarian communist thugs and have had literally thousands of letters from them which run in cycles and are very funny. The cycle opens with a “we notice that there has been no payment from this address” and then ramps up with increasingly hysterical, darkly menacing threats about the dire consequences of non-payment and culminating with “we’re sending Luigi and the boys directly round to your door and you are going down son!”. Brief pause.- and it’s back to “we notice …” On the day these vile propagandists extract a single penny from me Satan will be skating to work.
In Canada the CBC is essentially independent. If you doubt this, just look how they treat Conservative governments. They are just infested with Lefties, like all media nearly everywhere. They are part of the subset of the population that can’t do math or understand money. And they are about half the population so they elect their kind.
We don’t want government to have any control over them. We just wish they had two brain cells to rub together. I think the problem is the universities.
I believe that adherence to the climate agenda was written into the BBC charter a few years ago.
CD: April 11, 2018 at 4:16 pm. BBC is not funded by UK ‘taxpayers’ (although it does get direct funding from EU). UK TV viewers pay for a licence (£151/year) that provides BBC with an annual buget of about £4 billion. BBC charter requires political neutrality but this is generally ignored. BBC staff do not see themselves as politically (or scientifically) biased because everybody they know thinks like them and they know they are right to think that way. It’s a comfortable well paid sinecure for nice middle class people. The best option in UK is to stop watching TV and starve the beast.
From Wiki; ‘The BBC operates under a Royal Charter. Under the Royal Charter, the BBC must obtain a licence from the Home Secretary. This licence is accompanied by an agreement which sets the terms and conditions under which the BBC is allowed to broadcast.’
From the BBC viewpoint they have not misled the public.
They report that a new study shows that the Gulf Stream is slowing dramatically. That is true!
A new study does show that the Gulf Stream is slowing dramatically.
Now as it happens the study is misinterpreted and it actually shows that calibrating using the CMIP5 model simulations gives a different result to direct measurement and so the CMIP5 models are unreliable.
But is that what the authors concluded? Is that what the press release said?
No. The BBC has accurately reported the news.
In an ideal world you might think that the BBC would have technically gifted people who could correctly interpret scientific papers and would know that Model vs Obserrvations should be won by Observations.
But they don’t.
That’s not their fault. They have accuratly reported the news.
It’s up to the listener to interpret the news.
A state supported broadcaster must be independent. It should not interpret the news for you.
Mark Thomspon, former BBC Director General “I do remember… the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles. I’ll always remember that”
Description of the aftermath of Tony Blair’s victory in 1997.
Jane Garvey, Radio 4 presenter, recalling Tony Blair’s election victory in 1997
“I absorbed and expressed all the accepted BBC attitudes: hostility to, or at least suspicion of, America, monarchy, government, capitalism, empire, banking and the defence establishment, and in favour of the Health Service, state welfare, the social sciences, the environment and state education.”
Neutrality is not in human nature. Therefore government funding of broadcasters is always a bad idea.
MarkW, surely that logic applies universally (to all human organisations).
“Neutrality is not in human nature. Therefore
governmentany funding of broadcasters is always a bad idea.”Indeed, the least bad option would be a brodcaster who has some feedback from the widest possible number of people – such as the electorate.
Circular reasoning at it’s best. We want to believe that the AMOC is weakening, so let’s build a model that shows exactly that (and since we control the inputs, assumptions, and logic, that’s super easy). Then let’s use the model as evidence that our beliefs are true, then get it published in a so-called scientific journal, and have our leftist media buddies share it as “truth” to the unwashed masses. Rinse and repeat. This is post-modern science.
WR
“Rinse and repeat.”
Allegedly considered the most profitable term ever invented. Appropriate for the greens as that all they do with their politics and science.
This is the neutron star in the room of which most people are blissfully unaware. A climate model is nothing more than a hypothesis or set of hypotheses about how the climate operates. The modellers run their hypothesis ensemble and use the output as evidence in support of the hypotheses encapsulated by the model in the first place. It is, as you say, the most egregious form of circular reasoning imaginable. Truly absurd and something which needs to be permanently snuffed out of the scientific zeitgeist.
The purpose of a model is to test a hypothesis. If the model’s output reflects reality, then there is a chance that your hypothesis is correct. It’s not proof that your hypothesis is correct, at best it’s evidence that it isn’t wrong.
The problem with trying to model the climate is that in reality, we still don’t understand how most of it works, and the parts we do understand are to extensive and complex to model in the first place. So we have to make even more assumptions in order to reduce the model to a point where it is small enough to fit on even the largest of super computers.
Each of those assumptions and simplifications can be considered yet another untested hypothesis that is being mingled with your original untested hypothesis. The end result is an unholy mess that isn’t useful for anything beyond keeping lots of programmers employed.
More Rahmstorf and BBC fake science:
My bolding.
Models are not reality, ever!
Models do not substitute for direct observations.
“Can be explained” is pure assumption, utterly devoid of science.
Yeah, most climate “scientists” are better described as climate philosophers.
This major news should be a separate article on wattsupwiththat. I sent it to Anthony but he may not have seen it.
From the GWPF Newsletter 09/04/18
1) 48,000 Brits Dead After Worst Winter In 42 Years
Hayley Coyle, Daily Star, 7 April 2018
https://thegwpf.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=cc6bacc6dd&e=da89067c4f
The UK is being hit by its worst winter death toll in 42 years. It is estimated that 20,275 Brits more than average died between December and March. It means this winter is set to total at least 48,000 deaths due to cold weather – which works out at an average of one death every three and a half minutes. Campaigners have called the deaths a “national tragedy” as cold weather victims fatalities could be prevented – especially in the elderly. –Hayley Coyle, Daily Star, 7 April 2018
______________________________________
I predicted this Excess Winter Death debacle several times on wattsupwiththat:
HERE IN 2013
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/31/blind-faith-in-climate-models/#comment-1462890
An Open Letter to Baroness Verma
AND HERE IN 2015
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/20/terrorism-and-a-cold-winter-refugee-crisis/#comment-2076001
Excerpt:
“Contrary to popular belief, Earth is colder-than-optimum for human survival. A warmer world, such as was experienced during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, is expected to lower winter deaths and a colder world like the Little Ice Age will increase winter mortality, absent adaptive measures. These conclusions have been known for many decades, based on national mortality statistics.
,,,
In Europe, where green energy schemes have been widely implemented, the result is higher energy costs that are unaffordable for the elderly and the poor, and increased winter deaths. European politicians are retreating from highly-subsidized green energy schemes and returning to fossil fuels. When misinformed politicians fool with energy systems, innocent people suffer and die.”
Joe d’Aleo and I also wrote this article on Excess Winter Mortality:
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Regards, Allan
so twice as many people died from the cold this year……..they knew this would happen
The additional deaths may be a feature of the Green Blob’s environmental programs, not a bug.
So, more people die young in cities than elsewhere. Per capita
Allan,
I mention this elsewhere, perhaps on notalotofpeopleknowthat.
The forty thousand’ish deaths, has been done to death, by the forty thousand’ish deaths due to diesel fumes in the UK. Those forty thousand’ish deaths were considered to be those with days or minutes to live (perhaps a slight exaggeration) whilst suffering from an already severely debilitating respiratory condition, assessed by a doctors subjective judgement.
Subjective, in that, would the patient have lived 20 minutes more if he/she lived on top of Ben Nevis, not smoking, drinking, or consuming anything less wholesome than organic porridge oats.
I strongly suspect this forty thousand’ish will fall into the same category, of factual, fake news.
Hello HotScot my friend,
I co-authored a paper on Excess Winter Mortality with Meteorologist Joe d’Aleo of Weatherbell here:
“Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather”, September 4, 2015
by Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Some of the mortality stats in this paper were assembled by me from monthly national death statistics – see UK deaths plotted by month and a data source for England and Wales on page 2. Separate stats were obtained for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
I have accepted the 48,000 Excess Winter Deaths figure without independently verifying it, but it is credible. There are not deaths attributed to air pollution from diesel fumes or other such causes.
Excess Winter Deaths =
[The number of Winter Deaths that occur from December through March]
LESS
[Half the number of Non-Winter Deaths that occur in the other 8 months of the year]
The Excess Winter Mortality Rate is adjusted by population to compare different countries and regions.
The British Excess Winter Mortality Rate is typically much higher than that of Canada , the USA and the Scandinavian countries. I think this is primarily due to excessively high energy costs and poor home insulation,
Her Majesty’s governments are knocking off the elderly and the poor at a great rate – taking granny-bashing to a whole new level. Since I am getting to be elderly myself, I do not approve.
These are not mere statistics – quoting my kinsman John McCrae, these were real people, who “loved and were loved”.
As I wrote some years ago:
“When misinformed politicians fool with energy systems, innocent people suffer and die.”
Best, Allan
Here is another article on the 48,000 Excess Winter Deaths in Britain this year, written by James Delingpole:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/04/09/delingpole-48000-britons-died-of-cold-this-winter-uk-government-praises-climate-policy-which-helped-kill-them/
Seasonal flu contributes significantly to winter deaths, but here is the big question:
WHY ARE EXCESS WINTER DEATH RATES SO MUCH HIGHER IN BRITAIN THAN IN CANADA, THE USA AND SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES?
I suggest it is failure to adapt – poor home insulation, poor home heating systems, etc., and MUCH HIGHER ENERGY COSTS DUE TO GREEN ENERGY NONSENSE.
Due primarily to intermittency, green energy is not green and produces little useful energy.
These are the idiotic green energy schemes that Obama and Hillary wanted for the USA, and Climate Ken (aka Mr Dressup aka J Trudeau), Climate Barbie (aka C McKenna) and other scoundrels and imbeciles want for Canada.
Regards, Allan
From the UK data source, I can calculate the article’s 20,275 more Excess Winter Deaths this Winter compared to the previous 5-year average, but I did not duplicate their 48,000 total, and the official number will not be available for at least 4 more months.
Data source:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
Of course the issue is mass flow not just speed. The system can speed up yet not move the same total mass of water and vice versa. Knew a scientist that studied mass flow through the Florida Straights in the 1980s. He was amazed at how stable total mass flow was. Even then the hypothesis was as the climate warmed the tropical oceans would warm and more water would flow towards the poles. His last comment to me was something about the entire system is so complex we may never fully understand it.
I just had a brilliant idea: start writing grants to create models that evaluate climate models.
More people, then, would believe a model that says a climate model is a failure, since, obviously a lot of people cannot believe other people who say climate models are failures.
Robert Kernodle
So if I understand this correctly, the risk if that the model, confirmed the model, then were truly effed?
I mean, poo in, and poo out relative to models, and their model, model analysis.
I’m getting lost with my own models here………………….Is it like reflecting a mirror in a mirror? I loved that as a kid. 🙂
“the risk if that the model”
Should read ‘the risk is’……….not if…..!!
I think…………Doh!
FFF………(Forking Fat Fingers)
that would be a fracxtal clusterf*k?
roflmao
ps so where did all the superhot co2 caused hot ocean water go then??
dammit
FRACTAL
we need an edit function;-/
“dammit
FRACTAL
we need an edit function;-/”
Seeing the reactions to our collective screw up’s is much more fun.
🙂
The mystical powers of TheMagicMolecule™️ Never ceases to amaze.
Could, may, could, may, probably…
Agreed. I get so tired of reading “science” with the words could, may, might. That’s NOT science. It’s speculation based on limited data. No better than a guess, really.
Science is typically couched in such language.
Even though Copernicus personally was convinced that Earth does indeed in actual, physical objective fact go around the Sun, his publisher made sure to point out in a forward that this suggestion was just a mathematical model of what “could” be true.
Copernicus thought that the orbit was a perfect circle, but that’s another story. Kepler, based upon his analysis of Tycho’s observations of Mars, concluded that orbits are elliptical rather than circular. Then Newton invented new math (calculus) and physics (universal gravitation) disciplines suggesting why this should be so. Einstein later corrected the physics.
Not that I credit anything coming out of Potsdam since 1945.
“That could also affect temperature-sensitive species like coral, and even Atlantic cod.”
Dang! I keep hoping climate change will adversely affect species like wild blackberries and those little black ants that get into the house and all over everything in the cupboards.
BIG ant’s………just what we want. Heat gives the little guys strength.
They can also actually organise a piss up in a brewery, unlike most human managers.
🙂
You know they’re desperate when they have to play the “fish and chips” card.
Those freaking ants are insane this year. Scrub, degrease, scrub some more, spray – nothing seems to work. We can’t figure out what they’re eating! Their favorite place to hang out is the microwave. I put water in one day on 2 minutes to heat up for my tea, opened the door, and there they were, wandering around. Nuking them doesn’t even help!
Those little black ants just want some Borax and sugar mix. Give them what they want and they’ll leave you alone. I think it solves their their birth control issues.
It sounds like they just found another reason to reduce the upper bound on the increase in global temperature that results from a doubling of CO2….
Tom In Indy
They actually found something?
Well I never, imagine that.
The AMOC is not a heat engine. It is mechanically driven by winds. It transfers heat and salt of course but it is not heat driven and it is not possible for global warming to shut it down. Pls see Observational Physical Oceanography by Carl Wunsch.
I will take a non scientific wild ass guess that what is being alluded to, is a lessening of the salinity content thus slowing down or causing a directional change in the gulf stream current.
The politicians only desere is to. Be re- eledted.
So both the so called left & right wing must creat a reason for you to vote for them.
So what to.do. lets try this ..your all going to hell.. well it worked for 2000 years, but its out of fashion except with the odd early morning tv show.
So lets go for emotion.
We all want to help our kids, so what about leaving them a better world..but how can we ” sell this one”
Well i have heard about this ga called co2 & all the nasty things tha people say tha it does.
And so the myth continues.
Mje
stuff.
World destroyed by atom bomb
No doubt LA’s painting of its streets white at $40,000 per mile will help cure much of all the earth’s climate ailments. I use to think that religion was the most preposterous story ever told but at least, it’s a feel good story. Walk the straight and narrow and you will fly amongst your friends and family forever in the aftermath. However, in this new religion, there’s no waiting for the aftermath. let’s eradicate fossil fuels,the one commodity that has made our lives so much more livable and enjoyable. And why, because the models say so. Those same models that can’t replicate the past and are way off in comparison to actual. All of a sudden, the air that I exhale and a requisite for life itself is now toxic. The ante has definitely been raised to the meaning of “preposterous”.
Just maybe your model of ‘religion’ is somewhat inaccurate ( I presume you mean the Abrahamic religions “flying among friends in the aftermath” !) If so your conclusions would also be way off in comparison to actual. ( couldn’t resist it, sorry)
I agree that the popular idea of ‘Carbon ‘ ‘being a toxic gas is foolish . Like the popular idea is that asbestos is ‘toxic’ whereas it is the fibres when breathed into the lungs which cause damage .
“MODELLING….
I see no need to read any more.
There’s nothing wrong with modelling as such. But, a big but, an NGO like WWF modelling something will come up with the result that its work is important.
And of course, the WWF study was NOT in this headpost. Apologies.
The Slow-Down is wishful thinking, the Speed-up is researched fact.
“This weakening is revealed by a characteristic spatial and seasonal sea-surface temperature ‘fingerprint’—consisting of a pattern of cooling in the subpolar Atlantic Ocean and warming in the Gulf Stream region—and is calibrated through an ensemble of model simulations from the CMIP5 project”.
And yet actual measurements find no evidence of weakening….
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2010GL042372
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/113/20/E2760.full.pdf
I’ll trust empirical results over theorising every time
Isn’t all the heat in the deep oceans?
Shhhh! It’s hiding!
Dunno about their conclusion. I do know that the North Atlantic counter current was dominant for at least a month or so, turning the warm equatorial flow back towards the east rather than into the “bottom” of the carribean… which eventually becomes the gulf stream. From what I understand, the counter current is caused by wind flow declining in that area.
They have it exactly backwards. It is the slowdown in the global current that is driving the warming over the past 150 years. When the current is slower it allows the upper ocean waters to absorb more solar energy and feed some of that energy into the atmosphere.
The current itself is mostly driven by salinity changes over time. Some of those changes could have a solar connection. Changes in solar IR will lead to more evaporation which then can change the salt content of the upper ocean water.
http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Includes/Documents/Publications/gray2010_heartland.pdf
Hmmm … yesterday’s current events.
Max Photon
I’m raisin an objection to that.
🙂
That’s what you get for talking about currant events.
LOL The government creates the bias in the first place! They are all managed by former politicians who receive orders from their political parties.
Well then what happened 1,000 years ago and why. Clearly what happened 1,000 years ago was not caused by Man’s use of fossil fuels during the industrial revolution. The computer simulations are not much more than make believe. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero.
The decrease of Arctic ice extent indicates that more heat than on average is being dumped up North. The most important transporter of that heat is the Gulfstream. So, a decreasing gulfstream transports more heat to the poles. That’s what it means.
Can these people count?
Magical thinking means not having to think rationally.
Current collapse is magical thinking.
According to the graphic in the lead post the Gulf Stream has already collapsed and has been removed from the map. It’s already worse than we thought!
Well the overturning has slowed, but the Gulf Stream has not slowed, so naturally that would cause increased warm flow into the North Atlantic and Arctic as less is overturning.
I love the idea that they known they strength of something from a time when they did not even known it existed . Is there nothing that models cannot do !
LOL
It’s magic!
And in the Guardian too, with two studies – contradicting but complimentary.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/11/critical-gulf-stream-current-weakest-for-1600-years-research-finds
The gulf stream has an energy component, a volume component and a speed component. Each of these influences the climate. At the moment, the energy component shows a temperature anomaly of +4°C.
More modeling assumptions, then claiming that modeling your assumptions proves your assumptions are correct. You can only show that the circulation is slowing if you can show that a slowing circulation causes what is claimed.
As Prof Hajek said about a different study:
“The model only reflects whatever spurious assumptions are put into it. Starting with the opposite assumptions would generate the opposite result. This is no route to a scientific finding.”
What is wrong with reality? Why won’t it correlate with our models? I am getting a bit tired of these zealots masquerading as scientists using this tired mantra. As for the supposed ‘Science’ correspondents, the less said the better.
There is a magicaly mystery tour approach to climate alarmism that circulates between a circle of failed predictions.
The alarmists have so little regard for those on the tour as evidenced in never explaiming why the prior visit to the magical prrdiction was then incorrect but is now true.
How many times has the alleged collapse of the ocean circulation been offered, and later quietly disspelled, is hard to say. But it is more than a few.
In the illustration of ocean currents, why is it that in the North Atlantic, the shallow red loop takes heat into the ocean, while in the North Pacific, the shallow red loop takes heat out of the ocean? Is there a symmetry missing?
Maybe they are on the verge of discovery of the Mobius Strip. Geoff
By accident, I also tuned in to another BBC global warming program yesterday. There seem to be that many of them.
They had an idiot butterfly man saying how he had not long ago experienced the biggest UK thunderstorm in his life, citing it, among other things, as part of his evidence for baad changes. The equally moronic presenter didn’t think to ask him how old he was, and why on earth he should expect to experience all the biggest thunderstorms of his life while he was young. It seems these people expect the climate to suddenly become as boring as themselves once they hit 40.
Perhaps semantics within science has to do with these evil apocalyptic CO2 plots. Science discovers a ‘thing’ that is not a thing itself really, in the sense that things go about their own thing-business and might decide to stop thinging some day. We are all ‘things’ who skitter across the surface on our own errands, so this comes naturally.
So the Ocean Conveyor and the Gulf Stream become things whose ‘stated scientific purpose’ is to move water around. And the silly human bias really shows… they’re never portrayed as carrying cold water away from places we’d rather not shiver in. No, they’re industriously bringing distant warm water to us so we may attend the beach. Cold fresher water sinks to the bottom out of shame and self-loathing and slinks away under cover of ocean because it knows we do not like it.
The plain truth that these named ‘things’ aren’t things really… they are consequences of thermodynamic and tidal effects of Moon and inertia driven planet-sloshing in a phenomenon that is massive, mandated by the shapes of continents and solar heat. The whole iceberg if you will. It exists on a scale vastly beyond the anthrpogenic. The little ‘river’ of water rushing in over the ‘moving dimple’ on the surface to replace water that the Apparatus has relocated, gets vacuumed up into the Public Imagination as a Thing poised on the edge of a Tipping Point that might suddenly change its mind some day, if we are naughty. It’s ridiculous!
It’s like pasting googly eyes on a fire hydrant. The googly eyes do not change its inherent noble purpose or its subterranean triumph of infrastructure, but they do encourage silly people to talk to it and ask it questions… such as, are you angry with me? If I am bad, will you refuse to help put out a fire?
It is ~248 years since the great polymath Benjamin Franklin stitched together whalers’ tales and launched expeditions to map the Gulf Stream off of New England. He drew up a map of Science with no dragins on it. The Day After Tomorrow is a tale about climate dragins.
Other currently popular examples of climate ‘things’ are El Niño and La Niña events.
You can find some people drawing pretty graphs and pictures, making quasi-quantitative correlations of these with other climate variables. Yet El Niño and La Niña are indices invented by humans. They may well have formal technical definitions based on water temperatures in certain parts of the globe, but a human could just have easily constructed a somewhat different definition, or indeed an infinity of different definitions, which gives different results. It is easy to alight on a particular definition which has some very good correlation or persistence, but to then attribute special significance to it is fraught with the perils of circular reasoning. I guess it stems from the human desire to make something complex seem more understandable by trying to classify a ‘thing’ and put a simple name to it.
Climate change dials down Atlantic Ocean heating system
By Victoria Gill
Science correspondent, BBC News
11 April 2018
A significant shift in the system of ocean currents that helps keep parts of Europe warm could send temperatures in the UK lower, scientists have found.
They say the Atlantic Ocean circulation system is weaker now than it has been for more than 1,000 years – and has changed significantly in the past 150.
The study, in the journal Nature, says it may be a response to increased melting ice and is likely to continue.
Researchers say that could have an impact on Atlantic ecosystems.
Scientists involved in the Atlas project – the largest study of deep Atlantic ecosystems ever undertaken – say the impact will not be of the order played out in the 2004 Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow.
But they say changes to the conveyor-belt-like system – also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc) – could cool the North Atlantic and north-west Europe and transform some deep-ocean ecosystems.
That could also affect temperature-sensitive species like coral, and even Atlantic cod.
In this short section,
One may.
Four coulds.
One likely.
ABC Seth Borenstein
Study: Global warming is weakening key ocean circulation
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/study-global-warming-weakening-key-ocean-circulation-54394917
“Some other scientists are skeptical, citing a scarcity of data. ……… ”
“But MIT’s Carl Wunsch said that the paper’s “assertions of weakening are conceivable, but unsupported by any data.”
‘The Gulf Stream is slowing dramatically – this is due to climate change…’
Oh, really..? Well of course it is – it couldn’t possibly be anything else, could it..?
“That could also affect temperature-sensitive species like coral, and even Atlantic cod.”
Perhaps not:
“It is widely known that cod can live in water at subzero temperatures, because they can produce antifreeze proteins which protects them,” says Professor Andersen from DTU Aqua.”
Can anyone say: “negative feedback”?
Excuse me, but did Stefan Rahmstorf, CAGW cheerleader extraordinaire, just predict that colder temps are coming? That’ll mean the PAUSE is back, or that marginal warming will have to be so much higher when it returns, in order to hit 4.5C, that no one will believe that to be likely. Has he really thought this through? Maybe you could call a Mulligan, Stefan, and save your ass from being drummed out of the club. And do your community service, like policing wikipedia for a while (give William a break) route a bunch of critical posts to the bore hole. scare some school children with a WARMING scare story at your local elementary schools.
But now another alternative explanation comes to mind. Maybe Stefan is one of those idiots who truly believe that The Day After Tomorrow was somehow REAL CLIMATOLOGY? I think there are a few such nutballs, but you wouldn’t expect something like that from the hockey team. Would you? Stefan, are you a Day After Tomorrow truther?
Like an old man’s testicles, Stefan, your hockey team bona fides are hanging vulnerable.
This might be of interest:
Emerging impact of Greenland meltwater on deepwater formation in the North Atlantic Ocean
Claus W. Böning, Erik Behrens, Arne Biastoch, Klaus Getzlaff & Jonathan L. Bamber
Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 523–527 (2016)
doi:10.1038/ngeo2740
Abstract
The Greenland ice sheet has experienced increasing mass loss since the 1990s1,2. The enhanced freshwater flux due to both surface melt and outlet glacier discharge is assuming an increasingly important role in the changing freshwater budget of the subarctic Atlantic3. The sustained and increasing freshwater fluxes from Greenland to the surface ocean could lead to a suppression of deep winter convection in the Labrador Sea, with potential ramifications for the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation4,5,6. Here we assess the impact of the increases in the freshwater fluxes, reconstructed with full spatial resolution3, using a global ocean circulation model with a grid spacing fine enough to capture the small-scale, eddying transport processes in the subpolar North Atlantic. Our simulations suggest that the invasion of meltwater from the West Greenland shelf has initiated a gradual freshening trend at the surface of the Labrador Sea. Although the freshening is still smaller than the variability associated with the episodic ‘great salinity anomalies’, the accumulation of meltwater may become large enough to progressively dampen the deep winter convection in the coming years. We conclude that the freshwater anomaly has not yet had a significant impact on the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2740
Note the last sentence- it is a 2016 paper so fairly recent..
One of the factors in the onset of the LIA in the North Atlantic region (alongside solar effects and increased Icelanic volcanism in the 14th Cent) is , according to some , increased flow of cold , low- salinity water in the east greenland current from receding glaciers and loss of sea-ice.
It looks like a con job for those that are too lazy to look at the science of the AMO.
“One model based study suggests a 15% slowdown, a direct measurement suggests a 20% acceleration. Settled science anyone?”
————
Guess what ……. Best I can tell is that it’s settled. Somewhere between no change and +20% measured and -15% guessed. I guess it doesn’t matter anyway, but one guess is as good as any other guess when it comes to guessing.
I am really sorry to say this, here in WUWT, but I must say it.
This study here, even when that clearly is an AGW climatology orthodox very much orientated, it still stands as with a very high value, as per the present.
Is one of this moments that must be accepted, that the opponents, in this case the warmunistas and their science as put, has some real value, that must not be ridiculed insensibly .
This I think must not be ignored, even when BBC or MSM or other arms, even when considering the Guardian, happen to really make and happen to stand in this point in time by a very sensible and important position, either if you, me or any one else here happens to like it or not. (it really does not much matter)
It simply can not be ignored neglected or dismissed, just like that… with no responsibility.
I think that this scientists and their study in this aspect have a lot of value, as per the stand…..please try to see, reason and reality, in an unbiased way, guys…
From my position, this happens to be serious and not a joke…..this orthodox climate AGW scientists and their study in this subject happen to have a very important and significant value, either you or me or any other so called “flat earthers” accept it or not
Really sorry if this may upset regulars here, only speaking freely my mind.
This time this guys have a meaningful point put and pushed forward, which can not actually directly dismissed if one considering a fair balanced position.
It is one of these time when recognition of value must be seriously considered, regardless of one feelings, in the prospect of the better and the best outcome that could there be…
Again, really sorry, but that what my position happens to be as per this point in time…
These guys, all of them, have earned the pleasure of this run, accept it.
Somehow some of us here have helped it and support it in some way.
So just let them have this moment really…
Definitely these scientist involved with this study deserve more and better.
I for once tip my hat to all of them, honestly.
Really lovely.
When it comes to the rest of the “brain dead”, please do give to the “brain dead” what is “brain dead’s”….:)
Please be responsible with this one, still will be addressed and weighted further as time goes by, but for now these guys, have the upper hand in this one, we like it here or not, including the SkS neos, or even “climate barbies”.
cheers
whiten,
Could you please expand in further detail and with the great clarity that you have expressed in your comment. I’m sure you can help me understand.
eyesonu
April 12, 2018 at 1:52 pm
My point in my above comment seems to be clear, as far as I can tell.
There is value in the study or research in question here, one way or another.
I for once appreciate it…even when somehow it may mean that the AGWers may have got an upper hand in all this for now.
I do “tip my hat” to these guys, the scientist involved in this one, and am ready to stand up to some of the following mess noise from the AGW plethora at large…regardless of the “pain”… 🙂
cheers
Umm… if BBC is really all that worried about carbon emissions, they could contribute to a drop in it by putting clothes pins on their newscasters’ noses and sewing their mouths shut. That would solve that problem. In fact, if all these science people turned off their computers and did some real-world, outdoors observations, they could drop the CO2 load drastically in one single week. But will they do that? No. NO, they will not.
Sorry, but I’m in a foul mood because my lawn is barely one inch high instead of the two inches it should have reached by now and the trees are NOT leafing out. NOTHING. NADA. It is mid-April and in the upper Midwest it might as well be mid-March. No bugs emerging for birds to eat. Only a few robins have returned. And for the first time since Oct. 4, 2017, the temperature reached 65F in my area, then immediately began to drop again.
I do not enjoy the prospect of running my furnace into the mid-June.
It was still snowing here only last week, and we still have heavy night frosts all this week.
For a world where my children are not supposed to know what snow looks like, it looks like doing a pretty damn good job of being a warmer world!
From what I can see, we have the 2nd year in succession of an extremely cold delayed spring.
(Baltic and Finland area)
The positive feedback loop of salinity-downwelling-Greenland ice melt gives the AMOC its chaotic bistability. The AMOC and Gulf Stream are driven by the salinity-downwelling positive feedback. The Gulf Stream brings high salinity water to the North Atlantic. When it cools its higher salinity makes it exceptionally dense so that it downwells all the way down to the ocean floor. This is the deep water formation in the far North Atlantic and the Norwegian Sea. This deep cold dense water flows south, completing the loop of the AMOC. By doing so it in turn propels the northward Gulf Stream up on the surface, reinforcing the whole circuit with positive feedback. This feedback-reinforced AMOC considerably warms North West Europe and transports warmer water right up to the Arctic.
In the paradigm of current climate science this positive feedback at the heart of the AMOC would be assumed to be runaway and would soon be expected (projected) to turn the Atlantic Ocean into a whirling maelstrom washing machine. However in the real world of complex systems positive feedback does not do this, instead it causes self-limited excursions, oscillation and intermittency. Each “run” of the positive feedback causes eventually a negative feedback, which cuts it off. In the North Atlantic the negative feedback that cuts off the Gulf and cold downwelling feedback is Greenland ice melt and a resulting freshwater pulse, which chokes off the cold water formation and downwelling.
What results from these intermittent pulses or chaotic oscillations of the AMOC is what we call the AMO. This gives a chaotic instability to the whole NH climate.
It is not a regular 60 year oscillation. Instead it is an internal nonlinear oscillation of varying and irregular timing, with possible astrophysical (e.g. solar) external weak periodic forcing.
By contrast in the SH there is no such instability, there is no meridionally bounded ocean south of Africa and South America. In the Southern Ocean you have the unimpeded circumpolar circulation. Thus no salinity feedback driving meridional current loops. Thus in the SH both oceanography and climate are much more stable and changes occur more smoothly over much longer timescales.
I find it exceedingly hard to believe that a process as powerful as the AMOC can be driven by the cool part of the cycle (refer to the work of Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot). Your car may run better with a fully-functional cooling system, and a faulty cooling system could cause it to breakdown. But it will not run AT ALL without the burning of fuel in the hot part of the cycle.
This leads me to think that the Gulf Stream and AMOC must actually be driven by tropical heat. The cold down-welling part of the cycle must only determine the route and efficiency of these currents.
J
You’re right ultimately cold doesn’t drive a heat engine. The whole climate is a heat engine responding to the large asymmetry of solar heat delivery to earth, high intensity at the equator, low at the poles.
However in a feedback you can’t say what drives what. It’s the wrong question. The system drives itself.
AMOC is an oscillatory system with positive and negative feedbacks. There are several players – the Gulf Stream, atmospheric pressure gradients and their variations, meridional salinity transport, downwelling and deep water formation, Greenland melt, etc. Even inter hemispheric heat piracy south of the Caribbean inputs into it. Which of all these is the driver? None of them. The whole system drives itself.
The same is true of another intermittent oscillatory system, ENSO, and its players – Peruvian upwelling, trade winds, the SOI, etc.
Feedback? The AMOC is popularly portrayed as a conveyor – not as an oscillatory system. And the name “Atlantic meridional overturning circulation” corroborates this. I can quite believe that the AMO is an oscillation (the name Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation rather gives it away) but not the AMOC.
Fake science relies on headlines for currency.
There are actually TWO studies on this issue and both are in the SAME ISSUE of Nature – April 12th !!
The study referred to by Eric Worrall, which is by Caesar et al., says: the “modelled response is entirely CO2-driven”. So with the evidence that such models are increasingly out of line with the facts this study can I think be safely discounted.
The second study is by Thornalley et al. and does not support or link to CO2 alarmism. It refers to a “transition to a weakened AMOC at the start of the industrial era” some 150 years ago and its explanation is of: “… either hysteresis of the AMOC in response to an early climate forcing – natural (solar, volcanic)or anthropogenic (greenhouse gases, aerosols, land-use change – or that continued climate forcing, such as the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, has been sufficient to keep the AMOC weak or cause further weakening )”. So the gradual solar forcing in the last 150 years could be the cause.
PLEASE would Eric Worrall do an amending post.
Tony Carey
Ganymede Climate Services