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Living within a living, loving planet
Global Warming
Is the gulf stream slowing down?
May 31st
BBC News
Gulf Stream ‘is not slowing down’
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/8589512.stm
“The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea.”
*****denotes Sky’s comments
****We need to know what scientists and what satellites and how the height of the sea can be used to measure ocean current flow.*****
******Of course, not being an Oceanographer, I cannot understand how a satellite can replace a flow meter for measuring the rate of current flow past a particular point across the Atlantic current.****
****There is a new satellite going up next month that will measure salinity. Salinity is a major player in the conveyor belt action of the Atlantic current. The more fresh water that mixes with the warm, salty surface water moving north, the lower in latitude will be drop which effectively terminates the flow. When the overturn and dropping of the heavier and cooled current occurs lower than the British Isles, then the average temperature will drop several degrees [ 4 to 6c] as is commonly known. If Artic ice and northern glaciers continue to melt, then the warm surface water will inevitably be pushed further south. Since there are absolutely no other known factors at present that can drive temperatures down, then it seems obvious to me that this will happen. It is just a matter of time.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-satellite-will-measur
“Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend.”
***I very much doubt if measurements have been going on long enough to establish a longer-term trend. What is the definition of ‘longer-term? 10 years, 50 years, 100 years? In an article by this correspondent 16 August, 2007 [http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/6946735.stm] NOC’s Professor Harry Bryden said “But the reality is that anything we measure over 10 years even is going to be labelled interannual variability at the moment.” In 2007, the National Oceanographic Centre in Southhampton reported the following: “Last year the same UK-led team published evidence that the circulation may have weakened by about 30% over half a century. But that was based on historical records from just five sampling expeditions, raising concerns that the data was not robust enough to provide a clear-cut conclusion.” I think somebody got their hands slapped over this reporting because even though the flow meters have been extended and copious data has been collected, no spokesperson has emerged to make it clear, or at least clear to me, whether there is a downward turn of ocean current flow. *****
“The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.”
**** I searched but cannot find anything there. Of course, not having the document title makes it very difficult to find!!***
***There are hundreds of papers published here. Richard Black cites us no references for which we can use to find the paper***
“Between 2002 and 2009, the team says, there was no trend discernible – just a lot of variability on short timescales.”
****Has this satellite been up since 2002 collecting data? If so then this “team” has been very quiet. I wonder if this sudden assurance is due to the findings reported by theoretical physicist, Dr. Gianluigi Zangari, of the prestigious Research Division of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics at Frascati National Laboratories (LNF) of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics [http://www.lnf.infn.it/public/] who claims that the Gulf stream or ‘loop current’ in the Gulf of Mexico has stopped and further suggests this is due to the BP oil spill cutting down the vorticity of the current [vorticity is simply put the ‘flowingness’ of water.] Dr. Zangari claims that satellite photos show evidence of the loop current status. Now, I don’t know how credible Dr. Zangari is or whether he is just a maverick or whether he is being ignored purposely. I can’t even find a reference as to when and where Dr. Zangari published. All I have so far is the word of a person who calls himself Stirling. Stirling claims that Dr. Zangari said the following: “The Gulf Stream importance in the global climate themoregulation processes is well assessed. The latest real time satellite (Jason, Topex/Poseidon, Geosat Follow-On, ERS-2, Envisat) data maps of May-June 2010 processed by CCAR (Dolorado Center for Astrodynamics Research), checked at Frascati Laboratories by the means of the SHT congruent calculus and compared with past years data, show for the first time a direct evidence of the rapid breaking of the Loop Current, a warm ocean current, crucial part of the Gulf Stream” Perhaps I have missed something?
Can anyone help me check this out? ***
Climate change skeptics will love this
May 30th
Some examples of the material the climate change skeptics use to fuel their cause and spread doubt among those who probably don’t want to know.
“Key facts about climate change
- Burning fossil fuels releases gasses such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, creating a ‘greenhouse effect’ and trapping heat.
- Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are at their highest in 150,000 years.
- The last decade has been the warmest decade in history.
- If our greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control, the speed of climate change over the next hundred years will be faster than anything known since before the dawn of civilization.”
from The Green Providers Directory
http://www.search-for-me.co.uk/climate_change_27.html
Bullet (1)
Burning fossil fuels does not “create” a greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is absolutely essential for the maintenance of life as we know it on the planet. It is naturally occurring and anthropogenic causes only ‘enhance’ or strengthen the effect. Be that as it may, too much of a good thing often, and in this case, turns nasty. So please, let us not claim that humans ‘cause’ the greenhouse effect.
“If an ideal thermally conductive blackbody was the same distance from the Sun as the Earth is, it would have a temperature of about 5.3 °C. However, since the Earth reflects about 30% (or 28%) of the incoming sunlight, the planet’s effective temperature (the temperature of a blackbody that would emit the same amount of radiation) is about −18 or −19 °C, about 33°C below the actual surface temperature of about 14 °C or 15 °C. The mechanism that produces this difference between the actual surface temperature and the effective temperature is due to the atmosphere and is known as the greenhouse effect.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
Bullet (2)
This statement might appear to be silly to some. Of course, CO2 is higher than it has been for this period. Why? Simply because average global temperature and CO2 concentration in the troposphere follow roughly the same pattern. Their graphs look almost the same. So, naturally, CO2 has not been this high since the last warm cycle of the glacial/interglacial temperature/CO2 cycle which occurred around 120,000 years ago.
Bullet (3) “The last decade has been the warmest decade in history” NO. History goes back a long way. This statement is inaccurate. It would be better to say recent history and even better to say the warmest recorded in the present interglacial period. It is certainly the warmest recorded with thermometers and arguably the warmest as reflected in various ice core samples of the present interglacial period. Regardless who’s readings you cite, 10 years is not appropriate for climate analysis. Also, there are several abrupt temperature change phenomenon that affect short term temperatures. They interact and make short-term temperature predictions difficult. The primary one is the El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It comes and goes with no predictable period. In other words it is not synchronous thus unpredictable. Another is the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. It is associated with droughts in the US Midwest and Southwest – the “dustbowl” in the 1930’s for instance.
So it is best to remain calm and relatively quiet about global warming when looking out the window and noticing more rain or less rain or when it is colder or hotter. Whatever you see or feel, it has probably occurred before in living memory. Far better to stick with the findings recorded and reported by credible scientists such as James Hansen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
Bullet (4) Sweeping statements such as this are dangerous and invite derision. We just don’t know. We have not been here before. Even looking at the ice cores of the last two or three interglacial periods give us only probability. Better stick with what we do know and act on that. CO2 is increasing by 2ppm’s per year. Temperature and CO2 correlate. Humans definitely contribute to carbon content in the air. Sea ice and glaciers are melting. If the tundra thermafrost all melts, tons of methane will enter the troposphere. That’s enough to justify action to lower our contribution.