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?
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