Atlantic's Sudden Temperature Dive A Midsummer Mystery

[sandlapper]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25865-2003Aug6.html

Shivering in the Surf

Atlantic's Sudden Temperature Dive A Midsummer Mystery for Scientists

"During July, our water temperatures were, I would say, right around normal," said Capt. Butch Arbin, head of the Ocean City Beach Patrol. That's in the low 70s. About two weeks ago, he said, "there was a tremendous change in temperature, as much as 10 degrees overnight."
It was so cold Monday, Arbin said, that his guards pulled from the surf a teenage girl who was shaking uncontrollably and near hypothermia. (She thawed out in an ambulance.)

Is this a simple meander of the Gulf Stream, an early manifestation of the North Atlantic Oscillation or the even more dreaded southerly progression of the subduction of the thermal convection belt and onset of the new ice age?

My guess is it is simply more demonstration of the hyper sensitivity produced by the press's pursuit of ever more lurid sensationalism to satisfy a public overloaded with time and information.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

1. 50 years on the jersey shore and the water has NEVER been this cold!

the kids won't even go in the water for the last few weeks...:scared:

stone harbor, nj

[bahrbearian]

2. You would think that with all the ice shelfs breaking free

and glaciers melting, that the ocean's would have a temporary chill down

[sandlapper]

3. Those were Antarctic iceshelves though!

None of them ever got much North of 70 degrees S latitude.

[bahrbearian]

6. There is a deep current that runs from the North Pacific

south down past the antarctic north through the south Atlantic up the U.S. coast to the Artic

[section321]

4. One theory on global warmings says it could divert the Gulf Stream.

In which case the North Atlantic would get a whole lot colder. I'll look for a link...


ON EDIT:
Here's the link. It talks more specifically about the effect on Britain, but interesting nonetheless...

http://millennium-debate.org/indsun8oct.htm

[treepig]

5. there's a link in this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=452&mesg_id=452

on edit, i'll just give it directly:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98jan/climate.htm

here's a picture - the short version is global 'warming' is going to screw this up massively, maybe:

[bahrbearian]

7. Thank's thats what I meant!

Not counting the Artic Ice Shelf disapearing