SCI/TECH: Significant Weakening Of Gulf Stream Detected

posted by Matyas
Actually it is refreshing to see Mauddib and grover going at it again. It lends the board, erm, how to say this...a certain hominess, wouldn't you say?

Yeh, sometimes I don't know myself if it's for that I dig ATS, or it's the actual discussions.

OK, lay down your skirmishes, they are nothing to what we can expect.

I took a look at this link, and this is what it outlines as a possible scenario ...becuase of the climate change ...that's atready here.
"An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security." Note, PDF file!

_________
2010-2020
_______________________________________
*Europe*
2012: Severe drought and cold push Scandinavian populations southward, push back from EU.
2015: Conflict within the EU over food and water supply leads to skirmishes and strained diplomatic relations.
2018: Russia joins EU, providing energy resources.
2020: Migration from northern countries such as Holland and Germany toward Spain and Italy.
*Asia*
2010: Border skirmishes and conflict in Bangladesh, India, and China, as mass migration occurs toward Burma.
2012: Regional instability leads Japan to develop force projection capability.
2015: Strategic agreement between Japan and Russia for Siberia and Sakhalin energy resources.
2018: China intervenes in Kazakhstan to protect pipelines regularly disrupted by rebels and criminals.
*United States*
2010: Disagreements with Canada and Mexico over water increase tension.
2012: Flood of refugees to southeast U.S. and Mexico from Caribbean islands.
2015: European migration to United States (mostly wealthy).
2016: Conflict with European countries over fishing rights.
2018: Securing North America, U.S. forms integrated security alliance with Canada and Mexico.
2020: Department of Defense manages borders and refugees from Caribbean and Europe.
_________
2020-2030
_______________________________________
*Europe*
2020: Increasing: skirmishes over water and immigration.
2022: Skirmish between France and Germany over commercial access to Rhine.
2025: EU nears collapse.
2027: Increasing migration to Mediterranean countries such as Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, and Israel.
2030: Nearly 10% of European population moves to a different country.
*Asia*
2020: Persistent conflict in South East Asia; Burma, Laos, Vietnam, India, China.
2025: Internal conditions in China deteriorate dramatically leading to civil war and border wars.
2030: Tension growing between China and Japan over Russian energy.
*United States*
2020: Oil prices increase as security of supply is threatened by conflicts in Persian Gulf and Caspian.
2025: Internal struggle in Saudi Arabia brings Chinese and U.S. naval forces to Gulf ,in direct confrontation.

Take a look at it, and let's get to business.

If you can't stand the heat then don't make false claims. I just hate it when people like him do this crap all the time, and he is not alone, but when they are called on their claims they immediately try to become the victim and cry foul.

Cry all you want grover, i won't be listening to your crap anymore. I wonder why some people can't leave the fricken politics out of this and discuss the real issues....

Is climate change real? yes it is, it has been for millenia. It is unfortunately that we are at this moment going through one, there are too many people around and many will suffer greatly because of it.

Some people, like always, will try to blame one political party or the other and claim it was done by such and such, but if you ask them to back those claims or call on their twisted facts you are either immediately accused of being a "government agent", or being called a "bully"...

What people should be thinking about, and some other members and myself have been saying this over and over for over two years now, is to become prepared.

Have contigency plans to move in to another city with family members or friends. What happened in NO could happen to any city, more so if you are close to the ocean. Don't wait and believe the government will have everything ready for you, or then when it happens you can blame the government for not making YOUR preparations, and YOUR contigency plans.

If anyone is caught off guard unprepared it is their own fault, it is not the fault of their neighboor, their families, or their teachers, or their government.

A lot of people these days are too complacent and want everything to come to them without any work, well tell you what, if you get caught unprepared then it was your fault, and noone should be blamed but yourself.

Some people in certain risk areas, such as Florida, have contingency plans and supplies for at least one week to a month, and that should be the minimum standard for anyone who doesn't want to be caught with their pants down.

If nothing occurs then the worse that can happen is that you have a lot of food and supplies, and you won't have to go to the market for a while.

I believe being prepared may work well for the little emergencies such as the routine hurricanes and storms that occur from time to time. However I don't believe most individuals can prepare that well for a massive climate change.

The History channel did a recent show I think it was called Megafreeze that suggested if we experience a significant climate change, the amount of people this planet can sustain may drop from around 6 or 8 billion down to around 2 billion. War and famine would be expected as people fight over remaining resources. Maybe it's already too late to stop a significant global climate change. I think that may be pessimistic though. Meanwhile some apparently do not believe we can do anything to stop it, or don't believe it's happening, or don't believe its worth spending significant resources to delay the possibility.

Maybe the changes are already in process and we really can't do anything significant to stop a significant global climate change and the gulf stream will shut down sooner instead of later. Perhaps previous climate changes were caused by other more significant events like a dimming of output from the sun due to volcanic eruptions or a decrease in solar activity. I'm not sure. We can hope for the best and try to plan for the worst.

Originally posted by Muaddib
If you can't stand the heat then don't make false claims. I just hate it when people like him do this crap all the time, and he is not alone, but when they are called on their claims they immediately try to become the victim and cry foul.

Cry all you want grover, i won't be listening to your crap anymore. I wonder why some people can't leave the fricken politics out of this and discuss the real issues....

And just what type of person am I?

You are a pompous and arrogant fool. I repeated several times that I reported what I had read and you should be tickled pink that I went and dug a little, found out I was wrong and posted that. What more do you want, me to bend over and spread em?

As for leaving politics out of it....the whole damn thing becomes politicized when you have a former lobbyist for the oil industry (with no science background whatsoever) in the White House methodically rewriting papers on global warming to make them more ambiguous or to water them down. It becomes politicized when members of congress are on record calling global warming a hoax and tries to block legislation to address it. AND it becomes politicized when official inaction and obstruction threatens to effect us all, and any action at all is pawned off on both other countries and the states. All of which has happened during this administration.

So why don't YOU leave off the personal attacks and discuss the issues? Or, are you incapable of it?

As for listening to my "crap" no one is forcing you to. All you have to do is click ignore and you will never see another posting of mine again.

Originally posted by khunmoon

I took a look at this link, and this is what it outlines as a possible scenario ...becuase of the climate change ...that's atready here.

Just remember this is not a prediction of what will or even what might happen - it's a think-tank exercise to determine US response if such events, however unlikely, were to occur

Orion, climate change has happened several times in the past, when mankind did not have the technology we now have, and climate change have always happened, sometimes very fast, sometimes it took longer for it to occur. There is no way that mankind can stop climate change.

A lot of people say that mankind have accelerated the process, and for a while I thought that was a possibility, but if you look back to the 1800s and 1900s, and even centuries before that mankind was pumping more carbon dioxide and other free radicals than we are doing now. Pollution was so bad that we had events like the great smog of 1952, where an estimated 4,000 people in London died because of the pollution.

Yet in those times we actually experienced global cooling. Coal burning releases the highest amount of carbon dioxide than any other fuels do, yet we had, in the overall, global cooling until the 1980s.

Here is a link with some information about pollution back in the 1800s-1900s and even the 13th century. It is a link for children but it has good information on what used to happen in cities like London back in the day.

www.metoffice.com...

Originally posted by Muaddib

A lot of people say that mankind have accelerated the process, and for a while I thought that was a possibility, but if you look back to the 1800s and 1900s, and even centuries before that mankind was pumping more carbon dioxide and other free radicals than we are doing now.

No, we are pumping out far, far more carbon dioxide today than at any time in the past - just think, for example, how many cars there are today compared with 100 years. How many coal powered power station does China have today compared with 50 years ago? How many times do people fly today compared with 20 years ago?

All this produces more and more carbon dioxide, year after year after year. All over and above what would have ended up in the atmosphere were humans not around.

Most carbon gets reabsorbed by plants or into the oceans, but normally around 280ppm are left in the atmosphere. Today that's up to 380ppm and rising .... That's an increase in the residual atmospheric carbon dioxide of a third.

If you then add in the effects of increased high level clouds created by aircraft, and deforestation and other land use changes - which can have profound effects on regional climates (for example rain forests create their own climate - effectively generating the rain which allows the forest to exists. Take a way the trees and that system breaks down. Hence drought in the Amazon) - you realise that it's impossible that human activity is not having a major effect on regional climates.

I cant beleive people are still arguing that humans arnt affecting the enviroment/climate anymore than we have in the past!!

Theres more than 6 billion of us smelly polluters here compared to only 1 billion 100 years ago.

In 1912 the United States Congress was asked for money to build a jetty which it was thought would divert the Gulf Stream and make it flow up the East Coast of the United States.

There exists today far more sophisticated technology than mere jetties.

If the US deliberately diverted the Gulf Stream via its weather-modifying technology, it would -- to its own vast advantage -- ice-up substantial areas in Northern Europe whose people would then be dependent upon the US for produce and fuel AS WELL AS creating favourable climate change to the East coast of the US.

Profit - Greed - Profit - Greed - Profit - Greed - Profit -- Greed -- Profit -- Greed

Muaddib is right as far as it goes. Yes there was a lot of air pollution being produced in the past but the vast majority of it was carbons from wood, peat, coal and charcoal and such particles are fairly heavy so that they stay closer to the ground and fall out of the atmosphere relatively quickly. The great fog he refers to was a product of hundreds of thousands of coal fired stoves in and around London coupled with atmospheric patterns such as inversions which kept the particles localized over a period of time. Los Angeles has that same problem as do we here in the Roanoke Valley of Va. Car exhausts get stuck in the valley here for days at a time until Mill Mountain, which is only about 2 miles from where I sit becomes invisible and th air becomes real bad. The difference is in the type of pollutants we produce these days...hydrocarbons and sulpher emissons and the like are far finer and not only stay suspended in the atmosphere longer but rise higher into it. It is not localized pollutants in the air that is the problem, it is fine particles in the upper atmosphere for longer periods of time that are. Case in point the fine sulpher powder blasted out of volcanos during a massive eruption is thrown so high and stays up so long that one eruption can change the weather. The sunsets in New England in the year and a half after Mt. St. Helens were amazing because of this phenoma.

My hometown is about 80 miles straight north of the Baltic coast of Germany, former East Germany. Almost from day one after they shot down that country the air visibility was greatly improved.

Maybe an economic collapse would improve the climate.
...and then we could grow our own vegetables.

Well, just joking, but it sure would help if we didn't produce all the needless junk.

There are provisions now in effect that limit the amount of pollutants that can be released, etc, which did not exist back in the day. Back in the 1800s, 1900s and even before that there were no environmentally friendly laws and noone, or very few people, were even thinking about the environment. Illegal lumbing was more rampant than it is today, except in some countries which still do it without much impunity.

Anyways, the Gulf stream has been known to have slow down and stopped in the past, it will happen again, and it is happening as we speak.

Originally posted by Muaddib

Anyways, the Gulf stream has been known to have slow down and stopped in the past, it will happen again, and it is happening as we speak.

Links?

Please?

Really, do you have anything current? ...Actual measurements I mean.


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The Gulf Stream while actually quite stable has cooled and slowed in the past. Every time it has happened though, it has happened in conjucture with a rapid increase in cold fresh water (fresh water being heavier, it sinks and cools the deep currents that make up the gulf stream) being poured into the north Atlantic by melting glaicers and the result has been a climatic disaster. The nonchalant attitude in Muaddib's post belies the seriousness of its effect. The Pentagon report goes into the implications of such a slowing in detail and it is quite sobering. All this obscures the real question though, which is of course; How is human activity contributing to these changes?

I find all the naysayers on global warming tedious beyond tears. Conservation is not only a private virtue as Dick Cheney said, but should be the basis of a sound national policy as well. There is certainly an off chance that human activity doesn't effect the climate at all, but the odds are that we do. Even if we don't, protecting and nuturing the environment, and cultivating our resources should be considered a practical policy as well. We have been burning the candle at both ends for way too long.

Far from eliminating jobs, a sound environmental policy, would actually create an economic boom that would last decades as we rebuild and retrofit what we have.

There is certainly an off chance that human activity doesn't effect the climate at all, but the odds are that we do.

... wow. Off chance? Odds? Got any numbers to show this damning statistical evidence you have brought to the table? On the off chance that you do, I'll stop there. But odds are, you don't.

Well there is an off chance that the moon is made of cheese too but I wouldn't put money down on it. It was a rhetorical qualification.

It is actually quite impressive seeing the gulf stream for the first time. The water, since it is warmer by several degrees (I don't remember exactly how many) it is a different color than the surrounding ocean. It actually has a clearly defined border. The first time I ever saw it I had no idea what I was looking at. We crossed (the Coast Guard cutter I was on) over this line in the ocean, on one side it was steely gray/blue and on the gulf stream side a pale greenish/blue. The air was warmer too....kinda like riding the ferry from the Calender Islands off of Portland Maine....about a mile out you go through this temp. wall, one one side its cooler by sometimes 10 degrees (the sea side) and on the land side, much warmer.

Originally posted by grover

The Gulf Stream while actually quite stable has cooled and slowed in the past.

Yes - and part of the Gulfstream actually stopped for 10 days in November, 2004.

...I'm looking for help to find a site that posts current measurements.

...???

Every time it has happened though, it has happened in conjucture with a rapid increase in cold fresh water (fresh water being heavier, it sinks and cools the deep currents that make up the gulf stream) being poured into the north Atlantic by melting glaicers and the result has been a climatic disaster.

Uh huh. And in terms of details, I'm thinking about those icebergs off New Zealand, whose meltwater is probably about to enter the Gulf Stream.


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Originally posted by soficrow

Links?

Please?

Really, do you have anything current? ...Actual measurements I mean.


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Soficrow, could you please specify? Are you asking for links for what is happening now or in the past?

Indy gave links in this thread to what is happening now.

[edit on 17-11-2006 by Muaddib]

Since this thread is about what is happening now, i will take your question to be about the slowdown and shutdowns of the gulf stream in ancient times.

Innovative Research Proves Gulf Stream Slowed During Last Ice Age
By Kurt Sternlof

Scientists have long speculated that the Gulf Stream slows during glacial periods. An important component of the global oceanic "conveyor," the Gulf Stream carries tropical warmth up the eastern seaboard of the United States to the North Atlantic and Europe. Without its warming influence, a summer swim off the coast of Long Island would resemble a dip from an iceberg, and the perennial winter rains of London would likely all be snow.

This conveyor also moderates global climate. So while the notion of a diminished ice-age Gulf Stream makes sense, it has never been independently demonstrated—until now.

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory geochemist Jean Lynch-Stieglitz has found evidence that the Gulf Stream—which originates in the Gulf of Mexico and wraps around Florida to head northward—ran at about two-thirds of its present speed during the height of the last ice age. This in turn suggests that the entire oceanic conveyor also slowed, and so moved less heat into the icy upper latitudes.

In order to make this discovery, which was published in the Dec. 9 issue of Nature, Lynch-Stieglitz and her colleagues combined two established techniques of modern oceanography, one geochemical the other physical, in reconstructing the Gulf Stream as it flowed through the Straits of Florida more than 10,000 years ago.
.................
In trying to work out the complex relationship between patterns of ocean circulation and climate, it is extremely important to understand what happens during glacial periods—whether the conveyor slows, shuts down or even changes configuration. While other research has shown that the formation of deep water in the North Atlantic all but stopped during the last ice age, the question remained of whether the entire conveyor stopped or simply became shallower.
"Jean's work suggests that conveyor circulation virtually stopped during the last glacial maximum," Broecker said.

www.columbia.edu...