Despite Predictions of Collapse for Ocean Current, Researchers Find a Key Component is 'Remarkably Stable' (msn.com) 17
Past studies have suggested a major ocean current could collapse, quickly changing temperatures and climate patterns, reports the Washington Post.
"But scientists disagree on whether the the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is already slowing, and questions remain as to whether a variety of proxy measurements actually indicate a slowdown" — including a new analysis arguing that the current "has remained remarkably stable." One way to detect AMOC weakening is to monitor the strength of its components such as the Florida Current, which flows swiftly from the Gulf of Mexico into the North Atlantic. The current is a "major contributor" to the AMOC, the researchers write, and a slowdown of the current might indicate a slowdown of the AMOC. Scientists have been tracking its strength since the 1980s using a submarine cable that measures the volume of water it transports.
In the current study, researchers reconsider the data, correcting for a gradual shift in Earth's magnetic field that they say affected the cable measurements. Previous assessments of the uncorrected data showed a slight slowing in the Florida Current. But when they corrected for the shift in Earth's magnetic field, the researchers write, they found that the current "has remained remarkably stable" and not declined significantly over the past 40 years.
The researchers' announcement acknowledges that "It is possible that the AMOC is changing without a corresponding change in the Florida Current..."
"But scientists disagree on whether the the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is already slowing, and questions remain as to whether a variety of proxy measurements actually indicate a slowdown" — including a new analysis arguing that the current "has remained remarkably stable." One way to detect AMOC weakening is to monitor the strength of its components such as the Florida Current, which flows swiftly from the Gulf of Mexico into the North Atlantic. The current is a "major contributor" to the AMOC, the researchers write, and a slowdown of the current might indicate a slowdown of the AMOC. Scientists have been tracking its strength since the 1980s using a submarine cable that measures the volume of water it transports.
In the current study, researchers reconsider the data, correcting for a gradual shift in Earth's magnetic field that they say affected the cable measurements. Previous assessments of the uncorrected data showed a slight slowing in the Florida Current. But when they corrected for the shift in Earth's magnetic field, the researchers write, they found that the current "has remained remarkably stable" and not declined significantly over the past 40 years.
The researchers' announcement acknowledges that "It is possible that the AMOC is changing without a corresponding change in the Florida Current..."
Phew! (Score:2)
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They would be fine. It's nothing they haven't been through before. [wikipedia.org]
Ah yes, the Little Ice Age. That was an interesting article, certainly the Thames didn't freeze over as often as I thought it did. More interestin id that they haven't nailed down a cause yet.
Models only include the "knowns" (Score:2)
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Climate science appears to still be struggling with the unknown unknowns. It's still science and needs to be done. But it's a long way from being useful for making quantitative decisions.
No shit sherlock (Score:3)
Same doomer narrative was going on about Gulf Stream stopping by 2020 back in 2000s. I remember being taught in school how we would likely have Arctic conditions everywhere but in Southern Finland, while much of US East Coast would become tropical.
Doomsday kept getting pushed back as people doing guesswork... I'm sorry "modelling" were telling us that they just had wrong weights, the model was bad, the error rate was wrong and if we increase it to the point where model is pointless it sorta kinda fits with the model. And the conclusion was always "give us more money so we can refine the model and fail for exact same reasons again".
It's not just Gulf Stream either. It's everything from melting of polar ice to death of Great Barrier Reef, to global starvation from desertification, to Polar Bears going extinct, to sea levels rise that would put Maldives under water. A lot of these predictions were made in 2000s, and the supposed end date was usually 2020.
And then 2020 came, and Gulf Stream is fine, polar ice is stable, Great Barrier Reef was rapidly recovering (2024 report stated it's better than ever measured), we are suffering global obesity from massive overproduction of food, Polar Bear numbers are up over half, Maldives remain a really popular holiday destination and haven't lost any significant amount of surface area. Every single one of the doomer models was wrong. Even the most fundamental doomer modelling of "how much CO2 emissions will increase average global temperature by 2020" overshot by about 500% compared to reality. It was so bad, it actually went halfway into mainstream, with IPCC openly releasing "we'll do better modelling next time, now give us more money to do it" faux apologies.
And it continues to be wrong. But at this point the guesswork business is too big to fail, because it's become mainstream in propaganda. And so it trucks on, continuing to fail on almost all major doomer predictions by a massive margin, and then receiving money ostensibly "to make better models". It's a classic case of throwing good money after the bad ad infinitum, because as long as modellers continue to produce doomer prediction, policymakers who allocate money can continue scaring the populace which opens and maintains all kinds of wonderful political shenanigans that would be otherwise unavailable to the power hungry.
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Same doomer narrative was going on about Gulf Stream stopping by 2020 back in 2000s.
I don't recall any actual climate scientists saying this. I do remember various scientists pointing out that it could happen, but none predicting that it was imminent, and certainly none saying it would happen by 2020. But I do remember they made a dumb disaster movie about the scenario (to be fair, though, no dumber than the one about the sun turning off and we need to drop a Q-bomb into the center of it to start it up again, and a lot less dumb than the one where we had to drill down to the Earth's core
Re: No shit sherlock (Score:1)
What if the doomer predictions about the consequences of a national debt have also consistently failed to materialize (what if you told a very serious economist in 1980 that the national debt would reach $30 trillion, with inflation at 3% and the dollar still the gold of the international financial system because of private choice?), thus we can pay scientists to study whatever they wish without having to act on their biased findings, because money is not zero-sum?
Nice work. (Score:2)
Reanalyzing data for unsuspected errors (Score:2)
I have a friend who is an atmospheric chemist. She was proud of a grant she received from NASA for review of old data. The story was quite interesting. It has been about 20 years since I heard it, but the details as I recall were this:
She flew out of Wallops Island. Each scientific station, such as atmospheric chemistry, had an assigned position in their research aircraft. One day, unusually big equipment for some other experiment required shifting stations, and she ended up on the right side of the pl
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I understand your skepticism. But, that is the story as it was told to me.
I don't know anything about aircraft, but I am familiar with instrumentation, and a highly sensitive detector measuring chemistry in parts per million or billion might have sniffed this. Assume the story is true, then does that mean that aircraft are not as hermetically sealed as a space capsule, and that some micro-venting of cabin or potty air is possible?
Summary of the summary (Score:2)
We studied a contributing eddie in the larger current. The eddie hasn't changed therefore the studies of the larger current must be wrong and it hasn't changed either.
The real result should be 'further study of the complete phenomenon is required'.
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And this is his sofa.
Based on these comments (Score:2)
It seems we have some of these folks [imgur.com] on board.
In other words (Score:2)