Global warming may not have caused sluggish Atlantic

Global warming may not have caused sluggish Atlantic

environment.newscientist.com

Judging the effect of climate change on ocean currents could take longer than we thought.

The circulation of warm water in the North Atlantic is suspected to be slowing, and the worry is that global warming is to blame.

To investigate this, Carl Wunsch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used observations taken from buoys to build a model of Atlantic circulation. It suggested that currents could speed up or slow down naturally by a greater amount than the suspected slowdown linked to global warming, and such changes could persist over months or even years (Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo126). It will take decades of observations to account for these effects, Wunsch warns

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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Global Warming May Reduce Atlantic Hurricanes

There seems to be no reason to blame GW for changes in the Atlantic currents according to this study. Natural variations can account for greater changes in the currents than would be expected from global warming. Also these natural effects could last for years! Detecting and predicting Atlantic circulation changes based on climate change is much more complicated based on this study.

environment.newscientist.com
(visit the link for the full news article)