Ocean Currents Changing due to Global Warming

[Harry Hope]

http://planetsave.com/2011/01/05/ocean-currents-changing-due-to-global-warming/

January 5, 2011

Ocean Currents Changing due to Global Warming

New researched published in the most recent edition of the scientific journal PNAS has shown that there have been significant and drastic changes to oceanic currents in the western North Atlantic Ocean since the 1970s.

The research found that the influence of the cold water Labrador Current has been decreasing continually since the 1970s, minimizing the impact made by a cold water current interacting with a warm water current. This change has taken place at approximately the same time as the global warming phenomenon and is entirely unique in the past two millennia.

The international team of researchers used geochemical methods to prove that a drastic change in the western North Atlantic Ocean took place in the early 1970s, coinciding with changes laid at the feet of global warming.

The researchers examined deep sea corals that live hundreds of metres below the sea’s surface. The corals record in their own biomass the different nitrogen isotopic signatures which are carried by water currents, and in partnership with their growth rings, provide scientists a detailed and accurate reconstruction of the oceanic current ratios over the last few decades.

[hatrack]

1. Kicking for visibility

nt

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[Harry Hope]

3. Source

Swiss Federal Institute of Acquatic Sciences and Technology
http://www.eawag.ch/medien/bulletin/20110104/index_EN

[Speck Tater]

4. K&R

[leveymg]

5. This would also account for the increasingly cold winters in the UK and northern Europe.

A redirection or reduction of these and other currents could have a massive impact by rearranging the climatic zones around the world. Ironically as the polar areas are warming, there will also be areas that get much colder, at least part of the year.

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Exactly. (nt)

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. You'd need to suggest some mechanism for that, though

From the article planetsave points to:

One of the oldest known weather systems in the world is the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the periodic variation of atmospheric pressure difference between the Azores and Iceland. It dictates not only whether the winters in Europe will be cold and dry or wet and warm, but also influences the oceanic currents in the North Atlantic. On the continental shelf off Nova Scotia, the NAO seems to control the interaction between different water masses. During positive phases, the oceanography of the north-west American continental shelf is dictated by a relatively warm water mass at 10 degrees Celsius which is salty and nutrient-rich, originating from the Gulf Stream. If the NAO is in a negative phase, the Labrador Current is dominant, a relatively cold water mass at 6 degrees Celsius, which is relatively nutrient-poor scarce and originates from sub-polar regions.

Using new geochemical methods, an international team of researchers including the biogeochemists Prof. Moritz Lehmann (University of Basel) and Dr. Carsten Schubert (Eawag – Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology) were able to prove that a drastic change to a «warm water mode» occurred in the western North Atlantic in the early 1970s. This change, the timing of which coincides with and may be directly related to Global Warming, is unique in the last 2000 years.

http://www.eawag.ch/medien/bulletin/20110104/index_EN

But a positive NAO is associated with "warm and wet winters in Europe" and a negative NAO with "cold air to northern Europe": http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/NAO/

So why should a decrease in the Labrador Current, associated with a negative NAO, account for "the increasingly cold winters in the UK and northern Europe"? There'd be more reason to link this to the gradual warming in British winters (I don't have figures for other parts of Europe) which has happened from about 1970, with only the last winter and this one being particularly cold: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/datasets/Tmean/date/UK.txt

[GliderGuider]

6. I think this is the first scientific confirmation of this I've seen. K&R

[tavalon]

23. Then you haven't been looking hard enough

There has been enough confirmatory information in the last decade to damn near stop calling Global Warming a theory.

[peacebird]

7. wow. k&r

[Demoiselle]

8. Thank you for this post! nt

[Old and In the Way]

9. Winters on the coast of Maine sure aren't what they used to be.

I have pictures from the 50's/60's with snow drifts 6-7 feet high in our front yard. That would occur every winter. Haven't seen that kind of accumulating snow in more than 30 years. Winter storms now are more likely to be rain than snow.

With this new evidence, I'm sure the climate change deniers will bury their heads deeper in the sand.

[meow mix]

10. montana has rain in december, unheard of when i was little

used to just be -30 all the way through lol. i know im not on the east coast but just sayin lol

[Frustratedlady]

11. I remember those same winters. All I could see was Dad's head above the drifts.

He and my brother would spend all day digging a path to the barn...poor milk cows...and it would usually drift shut by the next morning.

School was closed for as long as a week because you couldn't find the roads. The ditches were full of snow and it was one blank, level area from fenceline to fenceline with a road in there, somewhere.

Snow storms didn't end until after the boys' state basketball tournaments were over.

[XemaSab]

17. My grandmother grew up in Duluth

She and her brothers and sisters used to dig caves under the snow and play in them. It was usually 6-7 feet deep every winter.

[The Croquist]

26. Wait a minute

I thought that Global Warming caused more snow.

I'm so confused...

[kestrel91316]

13. Shit. Hitting. Fan.......hold onto your hats, sportsfans.

[thereismore]

15. This can make things much more rapid and devastating. Gulf Stream. Shudder. nt

[JohnWxy]

16. recommended!

[GrannyK]

18. Kick

[slay]

19. self delete

on edit - weird glitch - guess kicking it worked. :kick:

[lonestarnot]

20. K & R

[meow mix]

21. inform dennis quaid nt

[hatrack]

24. Hah!!

:rofl:

[tavalon]

22. I think this is the piece that will make certain events, including a mini ice age for Britain

happen much more quickly.

Well, it wasn't like we weren't warned.

[Gregorian]

25. Maybe if we just screw in some more compact fluorescents. Or drive more Priuses.

Just don't mention overpopulation. Because that couldn't possibly have anything to do with the problems we see.

And China is just starting to grow. India is just behind. Without huge sacrifice, this isn't going to end well.