Despite Predictions of Collapse for Ocean Current, Researchers Find a Key Component is 'Remarkably Stable' (msn.com) 46
Past studies have suggested a major ocean current could collapse, quickly changing temperatures and climate patterns, reports the Washington Post.
"But scientists disagree on whether the the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is already slowing, and questions remain as to whether a variety of proxy measurements actually indicate a slowdown" — including a new analysis arguing that the current "has remained remarkably stable." One way to detect AMOC weakening is to monitor the strength of its components such as the Florida Current, which flows swiftly from the Gulf of Mexico into the North Atlantic. The current is a "major contributor" to the AMOC, the researchers write, and a slowdown of the current might indicate a slowdown of the AMOC. Scientists have been tracking its strength since the 1980s using a submarine cable that measures the volume of water it transports.
In the current study, researchers reconsider the data, correcting for a gradual shift in Earth's magnetic field that they say affected the cable measurements. Previous assessments of the uncorrected data showed a slight slowing in the Florida Current. But when they corrected for the shift in Earth's magnetic field, the researchers write, they found that the current "has remained remarkably stable" and not declined significantly over the past 40 years.
The researchers' announcement acknowledges that "It is possible that the AMOC is changing without a corresponding change in the Florida Current..."
"But scientists disagree on whether the the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is already slowing, and questions remain as to whether a variety of proxy measurements actually indicate a slowdown" — including a new analysis arguing that the current "has remained remarkably stable." One way to detect AMOC weakening is to monitor the strength of its components such as the Florida Current, which flows swiftly from the Gulf of Mexico into the North Atlantic. The current is a "major contributor" to the AMOC, the researchers write, and a slowdown of the current might indicate a slowdown of the AMOC. Scientists have been tracking its strength since the 1980s using a submarine cable that measures the volume of water it transports.
In the current study, researchers reconsider the data, correcting for a gradual shift in Earth's magnetic field that they say affected the cable measurements. Previous assessments of the uncorrected data showed a slight slowing in the Florida Current. But when they corrected for the shift in Earth's magnetic field, the researchers write, they found that the current "has remained remarkably stable" and not declined significantly over the past 40 years.
The researchers' announcement acknowledges that "It is possible that the AMOC is changing without a corresponding change in the Florida Current..."
Phew! (Score:2)
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They would be fine. It's nothing they haven't been through before. [wikipedia.org]
Ah yes, the Little Ice Age. That was an interesting article, certainly the Thames didn't freeze over as often as I thought it did. More interestin id that they haven't nailed down a cause yet.
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They would be fine. It's nothing they haven't been through before. [wikipedia.org]
The conditions that caused the Little Ice Age were transitory. It would seem reasonable to propose that were it to happen now, the cause(s) would not be so temporary, and the effects would be neither so short-lived nor so minor. But as IANA meteorologist, oceanographer, climatologist, or big-data climate modeler, I do not have the expertise to give a hard opinion one way or the other.
Scientists in disagreement (Score:2)
Glad to see news reporting that sometimes scientists have incorrect predictions, and disagree with each other.
99.9995% (/s) of the news usually has the pop science factoid or two, a scientists quote or two and an article making it look like what is stated by the scientist is 100% factual. The news being lazy journalists and not even trying to find a scientist giving critical analysis of another scientist research and conclusions.
The general population is rarely ever exposed to disagreements between scient
Models only include the "knowns" (Score:2)
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Climate science appears to still be struggling with the unknown unknowns. It's still science and needs to be done. But it's a long way from being useful for making quantitative decisions.
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Re: Models only include the "knowns" (Score:1)
"it's useful for making decisions"
Really? Like what?
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Re: Models only include the "knowns" (Score:1)
And how are things going with that?
Why shouldn't reasonable citizens decide the science says more about the scientists than about nature, and political attempts to ram the science down our throats will result in political backlash that will stall your efforts, because fundamentally you are telling stories and cherry-picking data mightily?
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No shit sherlock (Score:3, Informative)
Same doomer narrative was going on about Gulf Stream stopping by 2020 back in 2000s. I remember being taught in school how we would likely have Arctic conditions everywhere but in Southern Finland, while much of US East Coast would become tropical.
Doomsday kept getting pushed back as people doing guesswork... I'm sorry "modelling" were telling us that they just had wrong weights, the model was bad, the error rate was wrong and if we increase it to the point where model is pointless it sorta kinda fits with the model. And the conclusion was always "give us more money so we can refine the model and fail for exact same reasons again".
It's not just Gulf Stream either. It's everything from melting of polar ice to death of Great Barrier Reef, to global starvation from desertification, to Polar Bears going extinct, to sea levels rise that would put Maldives under water. A lot of these predictions were made in 2000s, and the supposed end date was usually 2020.
And then 2020 came, and Gulf Stream is fine, polar ice is stable, Great Barrier Reef was rapidly recovering (2024 report stated it's better than ever measured), we are suffering global obesity from massive overproduction of food, Polar Bear numbers are up over half, Maldives remain a really popular holiday destination and haven't lost any significant amount of surface area. Every single one of the doomer models was wrong. Even the most fundamental doomer modelling of "how much CO2 emissions will increase average global temperature by 2020" overshot by about 500% compared to reality. It was so bad, it actually went halfway into mainstream, with IPCC openly releasing "we'll do better modelling next time, now give us more money to do it" faux apologies.
And it continues to be wrong. But at this point the guesswork business is too big to fail, because it's become mainstream in propaganda. And so it trucks on, continuing to fail on almost all major doomer predictions by a massive margin, and then receiving money ostensibly "to make better models". It's a classic case of throwing good money after the bad ad infinitum, because as long as modellers continue to produce doomer prediction, policymakers who allocate money can continue scaring the populace which opens and maintains all kinds of wonderful political shenanigans that would be otherwise unavailable to the power hungry.
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Same doomer narrative was going on about Gulf Stream stopping by 2020 back in 2000s.
I don't recall any actual climate scientists saying this. I do remember various scientists pointing out that it could happen, but none predicting that it was imminent, and certainly none saying it would happen by 2020. But I do remember they made a dumb disaster movie about the scenario (to be fair, though, no dumber than the one about the sun turning off and we need to drop a Q-bomb into the center of it to start it up again, and a lot less dumb than the one where we had to drill down to the Earth's core
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Never heard of any of those.
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I don't recall any actual climate scientists saying this. I do remember various scientists pointing out that it could happen, but none predicting that it was imminent, and certainly none saying it would happen by 2020.
Same here. What I remember is warnings with probabilities that we might see effects starting anywhere from 2030 or 2040 to (more commonly) 2100. Citing 2020 sounds like baseless strawman 101 mischaracterization of the opposing position.
Re: No shit sherlock (Score:1)
What if the doomer predictions about the consequences of a national debt have also consistently failed to materialize (what if you told a very serious economist in 1980 that the national debt would reach $30 trillion, with inflation at 3% and the dollar still the gold of the international financial system because of private choice?), thus we can pay scientists to study whatever they wish without having to act on their biased findings, because money is not zero-sum?
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Funny how one party has fixated on the nati
Re: No shit sherlock (Score:1)
But do you see how Dems happily adopt a zero-sum view of money when they don't want to pay for something (tax cuts) that has become an ideological issue for them ("taxes are needed to punish, and also by the way to fund government spending!")?
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Same doomer narrative was going on about Gulf Stream
Be aware that the press seems to conflate and confuse AMOC and Gulf Stream. This was suggested as the earliest time such a thing could happen not a definitive date. And guess what, with new evidence people modify their predictions. You know, science and such.
And then 2020 came, and Gulf Stream is fine
You need to distinguish between the risk points of the earliest possible time of collapse as reported by the press and actual science.
Great Barrier Reef was rapidly recovering
Not really,
2024 report stated it's better than ever measured
It didn't. Only if you misinterpret 'massive change of species and associated impacts' as 'better than ever
Re: No shit sherlock (Score:1)
Why, when a scientist like Cliff Mass points out that global warming is resoonsible for maybe 4% of heat domes and such, does the mainstream media ignore it n favor of doomsday reports that it's 100% of the cause?
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Re: No shit sherlock (Score:1)
Why don't more scientists complain at journalists, as Cliff Mass does?
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Re: No shit sherlock (Score:1)
What evidence do I have that anything you claim in this post is true since you have provided zero evidence within your own post?
In short, are you a pot calling a kettle black?
Nice work. (Score:2)
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There are some very nice illustrations and an excellent writeup at the linked source. https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/reas... [noaa.gov]
I have been whining for years about the lack of details in all these climate-related posts on slashdot, especially those which source non-technical news organizations that have a known bias. This article sourced from the NOAA is a real breath of fresh air.
Reanalyzing data for unsuspected errors (Score:3)
I have a friend who is an atmospheric chemist. She was proud of a grant she received from NASA for review of old data. The story was quite interesting. It has been about 20 years since I heard it, but the details as I recall were this:
She flew out of Wallops Island. Each scientific station, such as atmospheric chemistry, had an assigned position in their research aircraft. One day, unusually big equipment for some other experiment required shifting stations, and she ended up on the right side of the plane instead of the usual left side. Her studies used a laser absorption spectrometer. It flashed the beam out the window, hit a mirror on the engine nacelle or pylon, then reflected back to the very sensitive detector.
At such and such altitude in the stratosphere, they started to get a signal for urea, a chemical which could be at other altitudes, but never at the one they were flying. After a while, they realized that the signal was episodic, then further realized that it appeared whenever someone used the forward head (on the right side of the plane).
So, they were measuring pee whenever it flushed.
The question then was whether urinary or similar contamination could have affected data from countless prior flights and experiments. Her grant was to review reams of old data and assess this concern. She was happy to report that most old data was valid.
It just goes to show you that regardless how carefully, earnestly, and honestly science is done, some odd, unexpected, arcane, or overlooked error can creep in. Such errors, if recognized, can lead to novel and important new discoveries. Or, in the article reported here, as in my friends case, it can lead to a data review which might clarify or amend prior conclusions. It makes you wonder though how many other taken-for-granted scientific "facts" might by wrong based on bad data - conceptually good experiments with accurate analysis, done honestly without fraud, but nonetheless invalid due to an unsuspected error that no one knew about.
Of course, now we live in a world of overt scientific fraud, giving everyone a jaundiced view of the process. But, it is nice to see that clever researchers can think about an issue, have that "aha" moment, and take the time to investigate a bit further.
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I understand your skepticism. But, that is the story as it was told to me.
I don't know anything about aircraft, but I am familiar with instrumentation, and a highly sensitive detector measuring chemistry in parts per million or billion might have sniffed this. Assume the story is true, then does that mean that aircraft are not as hermetically sealed as a space capsule, and that some micro-venting of cabin or potty air is possible?
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I understand your skepticism. But, that is the story as it was told to me.
Yes, but "that is the story as it was told to me" is also the way the story of the Vanishing Hitchhiker is told, and the way most other urban myths start.
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It only takes a leaky cap, or worse, to make it an unintentional discharge.
Summary of the summary (Score:2)
We studied a contributing eddie in the larger current. The eddie hasn't changed therefore the studies of the larger current must be wrong and it hasn't changed either.
The real result should be 'further study of the complete phenomenon is required'.
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And this is his sofa.
Based on these comments (Score:1)
It seems we have some of these folks [imgur.com] on board.
In other words (Score:3)
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the ocean currents will not run amoc after all.
Not the Gulf of Mexico's anyhow... I mean seriously... Go to Google maps and look at it. It's a giant swimming pool half the size of Alaska.
I visit Corpus Christi a couple times a year. In the winter water is maybe 13/C, at the peak of summer it's 27+/C... Average depth is all of 1600 meters. Where's all that energy going to go?
The answer is simple... Around Florida and out into the Atlantic. The only other exit is south past Venezuela, which is still several degrees north of the equator. There's the
Re: In other words (Score:1)
forgot 'knock on wood' (Score:2)
Gulf stream nightmare (Score:2)
For someone that lives in say northern Europe, ie in Scandinavia or on Iceland, if the gulf stream stops it would mean a new local ice age.
So two things I believe, don't know if they are false or not, but the article says noone else knows either, so I'm okay with that.
1. When the arctic melts the gulf stream will stop. Since it's the arctic ice that cools the water and simultaneously push it down to the ocean floor where it travels back, creating that watery "conveyor belt".
2. When the gulf stream stops, it
actual climate science (Score:1)
Here's an article by an actual climate scientist: https://www.realclimate.org/in... [realclimate.org]