SCI/TECH: Significant Weakening Of Gulf Stream Detected

I was working on my site tonight and putting together some things as basically a seasonal review for Europe/Asia from the National Climatic Data Center and I found this old story which I thought was important to remind people of...

"A powerful storm system brought strong winds to the United Kingdom on the 12th. Across Northern Ireland and Scotland, winds gusted as high as 200 km/hr (125 mph), producing 60,000 power outages. Three fatalities were blamed on the storm system (Reuters)."

That is category 3 hurricane strength.

You can view the image here...

www.climatepatrol.com...

What must be happening for a storm this massive to form? How much worse can these storms get?

This is what I get when I try to go straight to the site -

"The site you are trying to access is missing. It is a conspiracy I am sure. "

Troy

I remembered this thread the other day when I watched The Weather Channel and they said that if Boston had a maximum high temp of only 49 degrees, then it would be only the 3rd time in recorded history for such a cold temperature high to occur after May 15th. I was wondering if this and other unusual storms could be a sign of things to come over the next few years. I'm also wondering if governments would attempt to keep secret any gulf stream shutdown. Of course that would be assuming something like that could be kept secret. I'm not sure myself.

Originally posted by cybertroy
This is what I get when I try to go straight to the site -

"The site you are trying to access is missing. It is a conspiracy I am sure. "

Troy

Sorry I was moving the site to a new server and just put that temporary message up as a gag. :-)

Ok guys I hope I am wrong... I mean really wrong but I think we are witnessing the collapse of the current.

Observations from May 21st...




and observations from today May 31st...




Atlantic temperatures north of Florida have been crashing all May. Maybe this is some kind of fluke but the change has been so fast and so dramatic that its hard for me to think it is just a normal change.

Note the temperature scale changes but the most interesting part in my opinion is how the current seems very weak. The one thing the two images show is how cold water is moving in behind it around the northeast coast of the U.S.

To help understand what is going on look at the SST anomaly map. There is a huge pool of cold water off of the US and a building pool of cold water off of Europe. I suspect the warm area by Greenland is fresh water runoff.

I just found this thread and it explains to me the rotten weather we've had in Montreal this past May.

It rained almost everyday and temps were way below normal during the entire month. I was just saying the other day that summer still seemed a long way off and someone else said it was like November weather with more daylight. Records were set for rainfall in the Atlantic provinces (whe're talking three times the record in some places!)

Something is definitely up with the weather around here and your evidence for the cause is convincing.
.

Good Work Indy.

I think keeping an eye on the current during the next weeks will tell us wether or not you are right.

Keep us informed on this please.

Anyone know if these kind of fluctuations occur every so often due to storm systems or if these changes are extremely unusual? Nice pics. The pics make the Atlantic appear to be getting a bit colder. There have been several cloudy stormy and cool days during May so I don't know if that is the reason or if things will return to normal. Time will tell I believe.

IMO that this thread is BY FAR the most important and most impactual of any on ATS right now...

Most of the ATS'rs are bantering about a con artist wearing a turban who can call balloons at will...

WHILE THE NEXT FREAKIN ICE AGE IS BEGINING....
where the Hell is Valhall or River Goddess, or any of the other World watchers...
speaking of World watcher... where is she also...

lets see this very important topic on the frontpage... not the nutty balloon caller...

This image is larger and should show a pretty clear end to the current. It looks like it dies out around 63W & 40N.



And here is the SST anomaly map as of June 1. This shows a few interesting things. Water temps off of the US are much below normal and water temps around Europe which had been warmer than normal are now below normal. The culprit to me is obvious. That would be the signature of massive amounts of fresh water runoff from Greenland.

At the moment things do look a bit alarming. Here in South Carolina the normal high is around 85 degrees or so this time of year. It's been raining almost constantly for over 12 hours, took a break ,then is raining again for hours and hours. The temperature was 61 degrees all afternoon until recently when it climbed up to 61.5 or technically 62. Things don't seem normal. I am enjoying the cool weather though. I can imagine the frontal boundaries over land might produce a lot of rain and storms if the temperature differential increases a lot.

If the gulf stream is actually shutting down now, does anyone think this will make front page news or will governments try to keep this all secret to avoid possible panics? I suppose we need some government subs to tell us if the current has actually stopped or not. Of course satellite temperature pics tell us a story by themselves.

Nice pics above. I sure hope the price of food, the economy, and everything else is not going to be severely disrupted. If the gulf stream shut down now, does anyone know if we would see immediate effects in the weather?

As for me, I am investing in lots of canned food... and maybe start my greenhouse...
no reason not to, and many possible good reasons for doing so...

Originally posted by orionthehunter
If the gulf stream is actually shutting down now, does anyone think this will make front page news or will governments try to keep this all secret to avoid possible panics?

I think they'll try to keep it secret for as much as possible. Of course, eventually everyone would get a clue...

This whole thing looks very dangerous. In my area, the last three winters
were the harshest in the past 15 years that I lieve here, and the summer is wothout precedent. It'd be usually piping hot during this time of the year. And now it's just outright cold. I live in Long Island.

Hmmm. Guess that means the Europeans will shortly be too busy trying to stay warm and find food, and thus won't have time to constantly nitpick every thing this country does or whether their so-called constitution will pass.

Instead, Europeans will no doubt be begging for a new set of handouts to bail them out of yet another crisis. Trouble for them might be that the U.S. might have its hands full taking care of its own problems related to climate change this time.

For a glimpse of what is to come, see the movie The Day after Tomorrow.

That covers all of the slowing gulf stream.

Indy, what would the collapse of the Gulf Stream mean to Florida and hurricane season? more or less hurricanes? I guess it depends on where the warm water settles...but since you're the expert I wait for your answer.

If I had to make a guess on what would happen to hurricanes I think Florida would fall victim to more Gulf hurricanes. I think the instability between the north Atlantic and the tropics would reduce the number of hurricanes that approach land from the Atlantic because of sheer. However I think the tropics will warm a great deal more and the hurricanes that do make it through will be catastrophic. I do believe your chances of having a winter storm would be greater.

Would someone mind posting a link to the above current satellite pics showing the Atlantic Ocean temperatures? I'm still wondering if what I'm seeing are typical fluctuations or something very unusual. I haven't been looking at these satellite pics for years so I don't really know.


The current drought or dry conditions in Portugal, Spain, and the UK could be caused by the temperature changes in the Atlantic Ocean in my opinion. Here is an article backing up that theory.
www.cyberwest.com...


[edit on 8-6-2005 by orionthehunter]

Sorry bout that. Here is the SST anomaly map...

weather.unisys.com...

Here is another one of the SST maps.

www.osdpd.noaa.gov...

And another.

www.osdpd.noaa.gov...