Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Niklas Boers of the Potsdam Institute, if we don’t curb global warming, a large scale “Day After Tomorrow” style cooling event could strike in as little as two decades.
Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse
A shutdown would have devastating global impacts and must not be allowed to happen, researchers say
Damian Carrington
Environment editor @dpcarrington
Fri 6 Aug 2021 01.08 AESTClimate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points.
The research found “an almost complete loss of stability over the last century” of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but the new analysis shows they may be nearing a shutdown.
Such an event would have catastrophic consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa; increasing storms and lowering temperatures in Europe; and pushing up the sea level in the eastern North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets.
…
The complexity of the AMOC system and uncertainty over levels of future global heating make it impossible to forecast the date of any collapse for now. It could be within a decade or two, or several centuries away. But the colossal impact it would have means it must never be allowed to happen, the scientists said.
“The signs of destabilisation being visible already is something that I wouldn’t have expected and that I find scary,” said Niklas Boers, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who did the research. “It’s something you just can’t [allow to] happen.”
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-crisis-scientists-spot-warning-signs-of-gulf-stream-collapse
The abstract of the study;
Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation
Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 680–688 (2021)Cite this article
Abstract
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major ocean current system transporting warm surface waters toward the northern Atlantic, has been suggested to exhibit two distinct modes of operation. A collapse from the currently attained strong to the weak mode would have severe impacts on the global climate system and further multi-stable Earth system components. Observations and recently suggested fingerprints of AMOC variability indicate a gradual weakening during the last decades, but estimates of the critical transition point remain uncertain. Here, a robust and general early-warning indicator for forthcoming critical transitions is introduced. Significant early-warning signals are found in eight independent AMOC indices, based on observational sea-surface temperature and salinity data from across the Atlantic Ocean basin. These results reveal spatially consistent empirical evidence that, in the course of the last century, the AMOC may have evolved from relatively stable conditions to a point close to a critical transition.
Read more (paywalled): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01097-4
Sadly Boers’ study is paywalled, which I find a little surprising.
I mean if you wanted to warn people about an imminent comet strike, would you charge money for people to read your warning, or would you forget self interest and try to spread the news as far and fast as possible, in the hope of producing a response?
So why would anyone charge money for people to see their warning about what they claim is an imminent global climate catastrophe?
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CR,
Please, each day, put up a title of the sort “Mark Ingraham Says” — he and anyone who cares can stay there.
Then maybe a post about the Gulf Stream and the AMOC can have commenters mostly sticking to the topic.
I made if half way through this thread and quit. Mark and his detractors dominate and enlighten not a wit about the subject of the post.
Ever since reading about “Peak Copper” (1924+20), I don’t give a schist about running out of things other than fine wine, good horses, and birddogs.
Moderators, at one time I thought I saw a button for collapsing a comment chain. I can’t find it now. That would be a good way for those like John here to skip past a troll storm and get to the stuff they are interested in.
The Gulf Stream speeds up with warming and is more stable, flowing faster with decreased viscosity and warming Western Europe more. It is when the Gulf Stream cools that the flow slows down and less heat is delivered to Western Europe. It is cooling that is going to be a problem as a lower temperature difference between the flow North and the near Arctic air that will slow the conveyor belt.
As usual, the effort to blame everything on global warming by man leads these shills to mis-explain everything.
“… it must never be allowed to happen, the scientists said.”
LOL, they must believe governments have god-like powers over the oceans.
Instead, they have Canute-like powers over the oceans, which is none at all.
The researchers want you to read and believe their warning only, not their data and methods – because then one would see what a load of BS it is. The AMO could slow down, but it’s not going to depend on a trace gas or a slight warming. After all it was much warmer 8K, 3500, 2000 and 1000 years ago than now and the current was fine.
It is an embarrassment to science the way these con-artists clog supposedly scientific journals with their doomsday porn.
Gulf Stream predicts imminent Potsdam Institute Collapse (without any consequences to climate or human health).
On the contrary, the consequences would only be positive.
“A shutdown would have devastating global impacts and must not be allowed to happen, researchers say”
“Not be allowed to happen”???
So the humans are in charge here?
Is humans messing with nature a good thing or a bad thing?
If you’ve got your dab hands firmly on the global thermostat dial then the odd AMOC here or there is mere child’s play.
It’s a good thing if it’s the RIGHT humans doing the messing…
More about Potsdam
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/05/22/potsdam-institute-of-climate/
Chamber Pot is more like it.
“Tipping points”, again? Can they ever stop using lame-brained stuff like that?
It’s as though The They are itching and pawing the ground and snorting for a sudden, catastrophic event that they can point at, and yet, not one of these geniuses has taken a hard look at the volume of volcanic gases being expelled into the atmosphere right now. The They are ridiculous.
What’s next? Frost Fair on the canals of Holland in the middle of August?
Funny you should mention volcanoes… Gang Green tries to make global warming sound like what Vesuvius did to Pompeii, when in reality I can outrun any threat they care to bring up in a manually powered wheelchair with my great-granddaughter (she’s 2 years old) pushing it.
Oh, NOW I get it!!! Dr. Soon says essentially 20 to 30 years of cooling (which would be quite normal, frankly, as a weather cycle), so now These People have to cover their own flibbertygibbet doom prognostications (Earth “burning” up, too hot, etc.) by switching positions faster than a pair of card sharks switching cards.
This is not addressing the most important question: Is this going to confuse the Ecohippies and the Greenbeaners? Is it going to make people like MMann look silly?
If it does, I’m all for it. 🙂
Don’t forget Six Degrees Stokes.
I’m so sick of claims being made about things that weren’t observed and pretending their model is a representation of the past.
“Observations and recently suggested fingerprints of AMOC variability indicate a gradual weakening during the last decades”
Which is associated with the warm phase of the AMO. So if the MOC slows down but the Gulf Stream doesn’t slow down, surely the reduced overturning rates means increased warm transport to the high North Atlantic and Arctic?
Doesn’t that sound exactly like an admission of, “We’re making this up as we go along.”? But humor me, what if the “AMOC variablity” is wearing gloves?
It’s like an arrow with a point at both ends, useless at a distance.
Truth is it is not the weather that is out of control.
Simple question: What’s the Potsdam Institute’s record of successful climate predictions?
There ya go!
You charge money because it’s the headline that counts and people won’t bother to check you work.
This was a mania about 10+ years ago.
As I recall from researching back then, the Gulf stream is driven by the prevailing winds across the Atlantic, and these in turn are due to the height and angle of the Rockies.
Be glad to know from someone who knows about this stuff whether that is true.
Potential Josh cartoon idea — Paul Revere galloping his horse yelling “for a penny I’ll tell you what the British are doing”
Supplementary information:
My bolding.
The alleged research is models all the way using confirmation bias and simulated noise.
Just another alarmist narcissist circle self satisfaction dreams of their most desired disasters.
Just because it’s Potsdam saying it, doesn’t mean that it’s wrong.
No, reading the b. s. and it’s Supplementary Information is what confirmed it’s wrong. Being able to trash Potsdam over it is just a bonus.
Red94
Can you be more specific as to what part you disagree with?
Their acceptance of the climate as complex-chaotic with emergent multiple discreet stable states (a limit cycle) is very enlightened in my view. I’ve been saying for a while that this is the direction that climate science needs to move in.
I’ve written before about signs of an impending system change to a new attractor, such as flicker. Good to see scientists follow suit and not living in simplified “La La Linearland” like too much climate science. It would be nice to see climate science embracing attractor landscape analysis, maybe they are, I didn’t pay through the paywall.
And unlike many here I don’t deny the existence of the AMOC, the dominant feature of northern hemisphere climate and the source of its chaotic instability.
AMOC is a vague term. (PIK love obfuscation because they exist to spread propaganda.) What we actually have is
Together these make up the AMOC.
The power of the wind-driven component far outweighs any other. It is the wind-driven Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Current system which transfers heat from the tropics to the Arctic. North Atlantic Gyre – Wikipedia
Furthermore, the North Atlantic has a unique geographical feature that ensures it receives copious amounts of warm water from the Equatorial South Atlantic – and that is the projection on the East coast of Brazil where Recife is. While most of the wind-driven South Atlantic Equatorial Current turns south to become the Brazil Current, the shape of the lands tends to divert a significant proportion northwards to form the North Brazil Current – which ultimately contributes to the Gulf Stream. The southward nett flow of Deepwater across the Equator ensures that mass balance is maintained.
Walter Munk – Wikipedia
Yes I guess its the geography – you have a meridionally bounded ocean and “what goes north must come back south” to avoid water piling up embarrassingly at the Arctic.
Classical oceanography at least as I learned it at Southampton University in the 80’s is that the deep water formation in the Norwegian Sea is the propeller of the AMOC. Later the idea arose that it was happening further West toward Labrador (due to some influential modelling study) but now the consensus has reverted back to the Norwegian Sea (based on observations).
As an oceanographer I tend not to pay much attention to wind. Yes winds drive oceans but ocean SST gradients give rise to winds in the first place. Wind and ocean mutually drive each-other contributing to the nonlinear dynamics and entropy-exporting emergent pattern. Better to look at the emergent system as a whole rather than just one coupled component in isolation.
It’s just occurred to me that the alternate strengthening and weakening of the AMOC could just be a flipping between predominance of laminar and turbulent flow. A kind of Hopf bifurcation or Feigenbaum transition.
Re: “As an oceanographer I tend not to pay much attention to wind.” So you are telling me that Sverdrup, Munk, Stommel and Wunsch were all wrong?
Are you denying the existence of the wind-driven gyres? (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, and South Indian) Walter Munk – Wikipedia
What drives the Antarctic Circumpolar Current? Why does it go from west to east? – the same direction as the Roaring Forties, coincidentally. Why is it the most powerful current on the planet? What sort of ‘gradient’ could be driving it around in a circle, parallel to the lines of latitude?
What drives the various Equatorial Currents? Why do they go from east to west? – the same direction as the Trade winds, coincidentally.
Re: “the alternate strengthening and weakening of the AMOC” has it occurred to PIK and ‘Southampton Oceanographers’ that it might just be meandering? – i.e. deviating southwards.
8.4 corres (Rehen) 601 AM (mit.edu)
RE: “but ocean SST gradients give rise to winds in the first place” Huh? not the Hadley Cell?
“not to pay much attention to wind”
This is of course a ridiculous over-statement, but the point is that often everything in climate and even the oceans is explained in terms of wind only. The ocean is ignored or seen as passive. This is not the case, the ocean has active dynamics and influences wind as much as the other way round. In the Pacific the trade winds are strengthened by cold upwelling off Peru for example, and the resulting ST gradients. But yes – you do also have the coriolis force and Hadley cells.
The circumpolar current in the Southern Oceans is one of the main reasons why Antarctica is very cold – warm water from the equator is shut off. Not CO2 or meteorology. They are caused by – not the cause of – Antarctic isolation and cold. And Antarctica is the “Grand Central Station” of the complex 3D ocean Thermohaline circulation.
That is certainly better that Wally Broecker’s silly conveyor-belt cartoon.
Has anyone ever made a climate model that treats the atmosphere and sea as part of a multiphase substance? I have a feeling it would be more accurate considering heat seems to get moved about in water molecules (in my very basic scientific understanding).
I have finally come full circle.
When i was a young-in in high school, they were telling me the exact same thing.
Now that I’m older and wiser I’ve come to realize i have been part of one giant circle jerk.
Really? My last circle jerk felt a whole lot better than this!
[Moderator: Please don’t ban me for lewdness. If this is out of line, just delete and we’ll pretend I never said it.]
“make it impossible to forecast the date of any collapse for now. It could be within a decade or two, or several centuries away”
How convenient.
A shutdown would have devastating global impacts and must not be allowed to happen, researchers say
Such astonishing hubris. The earth will do what it does. We are nothing to it.
Hilarious! Come back King Canute all is forgiven 🤣
Don’t forget that this is a testable prediction. AMOC collapse will be hard to miss. (Hint – the AMOC does exist.) This is a big improvement on bob-and-weave infalsifiable climate “projections”. It’s a nice Popperian “risky prediction”. The AMOC could fail to collapse.
Their acceptance of the climate as complex-chaotic with emergent multiple discreet stable states (a limit cycle) is very enlightened in my view. I’ve been saying for a while that this is the direction that climate science needs to move in.
I’ve written before about signs of an impending system change to a new attractor, such as flicker. Good to see scientists follow suit and not living in simplified “La La Linearland” like too much climate science.
I’m confused: I thought warming was bad. But if it warms enough it’s going to cause this which will result in cooling. I thought cooling was good? And if it cools enough wouldn’t that result in things going back to normal which would mean we’re back to warming? Maybe THAT’S why it’s bad?
Re: Eric Worrell: “Sadly Boers’ study is paywalled, which I find a little surprising.
I mean if you wanted to warn people about an imminent comet strike, would you charge money for people to read your warning, or would you forget self interest and try to spread the news as far and fast as possible, in the hope of producing a response?”
I suspect it will be cited/quoted in the imminent IPCC AR. So they desperately had to get it published in whatever form because citing an unpublished paper is regarded as ‘bad form’.
The last sentence of the conclusion of this paper:
“Rather, the presented findings suggest that this decline may be associated with an almost complete loss of stability of the AMOC over the course of the last century, and that the AMOC could be close to a critical transition to its weak circulation mode.”
BUT:
“However—an estimative statement that uses “maybe” , “suggest” , or other weasel words is vague and symptomatic of the problem at hand—not its solution.
The last citing is from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_of_estimative_probability .
Nothing more to say.