Most areas of the globe are experiencing above-average temperatures. So why are scientists especially concerned about an anomalous area of record-LOW temperatures near Greenland?
First of all, it’s no error. I checked with Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, who confirmed what the map above suggests — some parts of the North Atlantic Ocean saw record cold in the past eight months...More at the link and in Wikipedia:
And there’s not much reason to doubt the measurements — the region is very well sampled. “It’s pretty densely populated by buoys, and at least parts of that region are really active shipping lanes, so there’s quite a lot of observations in the area,” Arndt said. “So I think it’s pretty robust analysis.”..
There is strong evidence — not just from our study — that this is a consequence of the long-term decline of the Gulf Stream System, i.e. the Atlantic ocean’s overturning circulation AMOC, in response to global warming.
In 2005, British researchers noticed that the net flow of the northern Gulf Stream had decreased by about 30% since 1957. Coincidentally, scientists at Woods Hole had been measuring the freshening of the North Atlantic as Earth becomes warmer. Their findings suggested that precipitation increases in the high northern latitudes, and polar ice melts as a consequence. By flooding the northern seas with lots of extra fresh water, global warming could, in theory, divert the Gulf Stream waters that usually flow northward, past the British Isles and Norway, and cause them to instead circulate toward the equator. If this were to happen, Europe's climate would be seriously impacted.
Back in the 1990s I read an article, in Scientific American I think, where the author postulated that global warming could disrupt the Gulf Stream to such an extent that it could throw northern regions into an ice age.
ReplyDeleteHere you go -
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation
It's also the plot basis for the wildly unrealistic movie The Day After Tomorrow -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow
People forget how far north Europe is Liverpool is over 1000 miles further north than New York. Compare the weather of Liverpool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool#Climate with somewhere at the same latitude in Canada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Valley-Goose_Bay#Climate
DeleteUnfortunately, climate deniers and their sponsors use this "cold" data to say global warming is a hoax. I ran across this image that describes these people perfectly: http://i.imgur.com/rDdbkSL.jpg This image was the perfect anaology for the Republican congressman that brought a snowball and threw it in the chamber as proof of climate change being a hoax.
Delete> More at the link
ReplyDeletewhat link?
I-)
The link that I failed to put in as a test as to whether anyone was paying attention. Fixed. And congratulations.
Delete:-) i'm sorry, i wasn't reading. what did you post? :-)
DeleteI-)
There's a trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson that deals with all this very well.
ReplyDelete