SCI/TECH: Significant Weakening Of Gulf Stream Detected

Originally posted by Muaddib



People should learn to leave the political bickering behind, which nowadays is part of every topic because certain people are just interested in furthering a political agenda instead of the truth. We have to work together, and each person should be making plans on their own for any possible disaster/s instead of waiting and believing the government can do everything and if it doesn't, they can latter on blame everything on the government.


[edit on 13-5-2006 by Muaddib]

Good advice!! Especially about the political bickering!!!

Originally posted by Muaddib

Originally posted by cyberdude78
Currently most of us fear global warming, yet few know that we could expirience just the opposite.

A lot of people don't seem to understand what global warming means.

Global warming actually brings colder temperatures to the northern regions of the world. To put it in layman's terms, global warming melts glaciers in the poles faster than they can grow, the fresh water that is released from this warming breaks the balance of salinity which maintains the north atlantic conveyor belt running, which in turn slows the current down thus not being able to bring warmer waters to the norther regions. Warmer waters which gives us the mild winters in the northern regions of the world.

If the north Atlantic conveyor belt weakens more or even stops all together, which I think it will happen within a decade or less, we are looking at an ice age in those northern regions of the world.

Actually for once Muaddib agree with this one cavet...from what I have been able to piece together it would be a dry ice age. Has anyone seen the pentagon paper on global warming that was released about a year ago after being suppressed by the Bush administration? I think I will post it.

The UK relies heavily on this mid-atlantic conveyor, since they are at a latitude that is rather northward, without the current warming they will cool quite a bit.

And they bloody well ain't gonna like it!

And of course it won't stop there as everything affects everything else.

As pointed out by DontTreadOnMe earlier in this thread, this discussion on "significant weakening of the Gulf Stream" should also encompass climate change variables introduced by volcanic activity.

For example, one climate science hypothesis recently offered discusses the relationship between the expansion of ocean water (due to both ice melting and biosphere temperature increase) and subsequent increased pressure on continental shelves, resulting in likely increases in volcanic activity in coastal land areas globally. I will check around on the Internet for the original link on this, but in the meantime, here is a link for the Union of Concerned Scientists web pages on global warming, which cover a lot of ground:

www.ucsusa.org...

Ironically, a worldwide increase in the release of volcanic gases would at least temporarily increase global dimming, which helps to moderate global temperatures. Remember, for example, the measurable worldwide temperature cooldown in 1995 later linked to the massive activity of Mount Pinatubo in the Phillipines that same year?

An analysis of currently available scientific studies of global dimming is available on Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org...




[edit on 15-5-2006 by FutureLibrarian]

The effects of Mount Pinatubo were great. I think it was 1992 or 1993. The summer following the eruption we nearly got a frost/freeze in late June in Indiana. And Pinatubo honestly wasn't all that great. I think it was only a VEI 6.

Can anyone explain this image? Look at the warm water stream in the east Atlantic.

Are there any volcanoes in that area? I'm wondering if an undersea volcano might be the cause of the hotter water. I don't know what web site might show active underwater volcanoes.

I suppose another possibility is that the ocean currents flow differently in that area so that it tends to warm up faster than the surrounding areas. Someone would have to look at lots of past data to know if that's true.

[edit on 16-5-2006 by orionthehunter]

i remember seeing about two or three days ago or so a news link in which it is said that the region where hurricanes form is a lot hotter this year than last year. i will see if I can dig it up.

Here is one link about this, but it is not the one I saw.

www.brendanloy.com...

At the same time last year the waters in the Gulf of Mexico were colder than they are now.

BTW more news that have to do with this topic are the following. There are predictions that even New York could be hit by a hurricane this year.

today.reuters.com


www.terradaily.com...


nytimes.com
[edit on 16-5-2006 by Muaddib]

mod edit to shorten link

[edit on 16-5-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

I apologize for my ignorance on the matter as I have not read the entire thread.

My understanding was the North Atlantic Conveyor is only responsible for warming Europe. North America sees the already cold arctic water it brings back South. Ergo the conveyor shutting down was the likely cause of the "Mini Ice-Age" experienced by Europe in the 1200's.

If this is correct, what's with all the freaking out about Global Warming bringing about a full blown Ice Age? Would not just Europe become frozen again? Leaving the rest of the northern hemisphere just a tad bit cooler than normal, but certainly nothing serious?

I will attempt to sum things up not having read this thread in about a year. If the gulf stream shuts down and it appears that a large majority of it already has in my opinion, climate change will commence.

Heat transfer via water in the oceans ceases or significantly decreases if the gulf stream doesn't shut down. Water in warmer regions gets a lot hotter and water in northern climates may get colder (unless volcanic activity is heating it up as well).

With the global heat transfer mechanism significantly reduced via the oceans, the result will be wider temperature variatons between northern and southern climates. The ocean will get hotter than normal around the equator. Storms and weather systems in general become much more intense and variable. Rainfall and/or snowfall increases as the air becomes loaded with moisture.

In some places the winds change so that major droughts occur. It becomes more expensive to grow food. Storms do major damage worldwide. If the gulf stream completely shuts down, the above becomes extreme and temperatures could plummet as much as 10 or 15 degrees below normal year round in northern parts of North America and Europe in my opinion.

Either way, I believe climate change (not global warming) is upon us. The weather will continue getting more destructive. I believe global warming is the phrase many used to use because they believed or still do that the planet will only continue getting hotter due to greenhouse gases.

If you take into account history over the past many thousands of years which included ice ages, you see a pattern where the oceans warmed up and the gulf stream shut down and an ice age followed. I've read about tropical plants being found in the ice in Antarctica which would indicate to me that climate change can occur much faster than scientists have speculated. I'm not sure if that is true or not though. That could be true due to the poles shifting location but I believe that is a different climate change discussion topic.

Anyway, that's how I see the whole picture in a nutshell.

I believe climate change will get worse and it's already happening.

Note: If the ocean is no longer providing a very good heat exchange mechanism for the planet, then the air will have a lot more energy to transfer between a hotter equator and colder pole positions. This means weather patterns will change and storms become much more energetic and destructive. Droughts or monsoons may occur in different places.


[edit on 16-5-2006 by orionthehunter]

One of the links above stated that there is an official report stating that there is 50/50 chance of the aging levee around Lake Okeechobee in Florida breaking if a major hurricane strikes it. A levee break there would require evacuation of up to 40,000 people and it currently provides drinking water for millions of people.

I'd say climate change and more intense hurricanes are a definite concern. Doing some preparation might really pay off big if we can prevent some of these disasters.

Well put Orion. That is exactly how I see it playing out. People in the midwest and plains states should know what this means. Everyone in this region should understand the impact of having two distinctly different air masses attempting to occupy the same space. The result is violent storms. Such a setup has the ability to create massive snowstorms in the winter and terrible severe weather outbreaks in the spring. I know we here in Indiana go ta really good taste of it the first 2 to 3 weeks of April with endless severe weather outbreaks including an almost unheard of 3 severe weather events in a single day. We just went through two very nasty hurricane seasons in a row. Hurricane season 2006 is going to kick off in 2 weeks. Hopefully we won't see a repeat. But the way the ocean temps are setting up we may be in for a long season once again. HOWEVER... at this time I do not see a dominant high pressure established anywhere near the east coast of the US. As long as this remains the case the number of landfalling systems should be greatly dimished. If you see a high pressure make itself at home just off of the east coast then you can bank on a bad season. The further away from the coast the high sets up the better off we'll be.

Here is the link for the free transcript of the May 2006 PBS NOVA documentary titled "Dimming the Sun". It was just recently posted:

www.pbs.org...

(For example, increased global dimming (caused by anything from increased volcanic activity to more airline flights, etc.) is associated with temporary slowdowns of the rate of solar absorption on the surface of Earth.)

I agree with Orion about making household preparations. In a recent "emergency preparation" seminar I attended, it was stated that the number 1 emergency item most people neglect to stockpile is water. At my house, we have 20 3-gallon containers of #2 plastic (i.e., food grade plastic) stored on site. There are 5-gallon containers available, but my back can't take lifting those! The 3-gallon size of water container can be purchased in the U.S. at "Smart & Final" stores, for example. We fill our 3-gallon containers at a health food store where water can be purchased from a quintuple-filtation water machine. Just be careful to not place your stored water container directly onto a concrete surface, as salts from the concrete can eventually leach through the plastic into the water.

What? Absorbing concrete through the plastic? If plastic has this problem how could there not be long term storage problems with plastic itself? I suspect plastic is leaching into the water from long term storage. Maybe at least you still have water, but I would think I'd rather have a more stable container for it.

Relentless, I totally agree that plastic is not the ideal storage medium for water. If I could, I would just use glass containers. But then that would limit my container size to 1 gallon, since glass is so heavy. When we planned for water storage, we wanted to store at least 50 gallons of drinking water at home, since we live in a semi-rural area in earthquake country. After the last quake, for example, our area had no water pressure for over one day. We also figure that few of our near neighbors would have stored water, so we wanted to have enough to share for a few days.

Also, we deal with the problem of anything leaching into the water with fast rotation of the stored water: We refill all the bottles once or twice a month. (We are vegans and so we do a lot of cooking at home, which also uses a lot of water.)

Regarding plastic, my own goal is to discontinue its use as much as possible. For example, I use a steel cup for drinks carried in my car, and I found that old-fashioned waxed paper works fine in the microwave for reheating food. The following book has some of the most comprehensive analysis of problems with plastic. The lead author is senior scientist with the World Wildlife Fund:

Our Stolen Future : How We Are Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival - by Theo Colburn, et. al. 1997

[edit on 9-6-2006 by FutureLibrarian]

I'm just wondering, is it normal for the ocean temperatures to be so uniform looking from west to east on the image provided here?

www.climatepatrol.com...


I'm wondering how this image might look if the gulf stream flow had pretty much died down. Maybe this is normal. I'm just wondering.

Well, it looks ok to me.

You can see on the image below how it takes a bend across the Atlantic.

Originally posted by khunmoon in Atlantic Current Halted In 2004
The American Scientist study denying the Gulf Stream benificial to Europe, has none the least some interesting graphical imagies. Here is one showing that thermohaline conveyor belt.

Figure 3. Thermohaline circulation?often dubbed "the ocean conveyor belt"?carries warm surface waters (pink) from the tropics to the North Atlantic, with the return flow at depth (purple).
Illustration after Wallace Broecker, modified by Ernst Maier-Reimer, courtesy of CLIVAR International Project Office.

I am surprised at this view of the current stream. It does not strike me as the same as a year or two ago. I think it has changed.

Can anyone post images in one post of the flow from a few years back next to the current flow?

Indy - are you out there? I think you have/had some images from prior years.

[edit on 11/16/2006 by Relentless]