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Phys.Org is reporting on the results of a recent study by University of Washington oceanographers. The paper, published 28 July, 2016 in Geophysical Research Letters [abstract only, full text paywalled] details research pointing to a cause of the slowdown in the Atlantic Ocean circulation currents.
From the Phys.org article:
The ocean circulation that is responsible for England's mild climate appears to be slowing down. The shift is not sudden or dramatic, as in the 2004 sci-fi movie "The Day After Tomorrow," but it is a real effect that has consequences for the climates of eastern North America and Western Europe.
Also unlike in that movie, and in theories of long-term climate change, these recent trends are not connected with the melting of the Arctic sea ice and buildup of freshwater near the North Pole. Instead, they seem to be connected to shifts at the southern end of the planet, according to a recent University of Washington study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"It doesn't work like in the movie, of course," said Kathryn Kelly, an oceanographer at the UW's Applied Physics Laboratory. "The slowdown is actually happening very gradually, but it seems to be happening like predicted: It does seem to be spinning down."
The study looked at data from satellites and ocean sensors off Miami that have tracked what's known as the Atlantic overturning circulation for more than a decade. Together they show a definite slowdown since 2004, confirming a trend suspected before then from spottier data.
[...] "It appears that this 10-year slowdown is not related to salinity," Kelly said. In fact, despite more ice melt, surface water in the Arctic is getting saltier and therefore denser, she said, because of less precipitation. "That means the slowdown could not possibly be due to salinity—it's just backwards. The North Atlantic has actually been getting saltier."
[More...]
Instead, the authors saw a surprising connection with a current around the southern tip of South Africa. In what's known as the Agulhas Current, warm Indian Ocean water flows south along the African coast and around the continent's tip toward the Atlantic, but then makes a sharp turn back to join the stormy southern circumpolar current. Warm water that escapes into the Atlantic around the cape of South Africa is known as the Agulhas Leakage. The new research shows the amount of leakage changes with the quantity of heat transported northward by the overturning circulation.
"We've found that the two are connected, but I don't think we've found that one causes the other," Kelly said. "It's more likely that whatever changed the Agulhas changed the whole system."
She believes atmospheric changes may be affecting both currents simultaneously.
"Most people have thought this current should be driven by a salinity change, but maybe it's the [Southern Ocean] winds," Kelly said.
The finding could have implications for northern European and eastern U.S. climates, and for understanding how the world's oceans carry heat from the tropics toward the poles.
Have any Soylentils noticed any effect from the current slowdown?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday October 06 2016, @01:55AM
Our world is dying, our people exploited, our people sick, and you would argue right up until the point of our collective death, that is everything is fine, corporations are good for us, and money is speech.
And you are full of shit. Let's go through that list, eh? World is dying? There are obvious environmental problems, pollution and species extinction, some on large scale. When I think dying, I think growing disruptions of global scale ecosystems. We're not close to that. Sure, if we continue polluting more and more, there will be such problems of such extent and severity that most people would agree the world is dying.
But here's the huge thing you ignore. We already have a large part of the world, the developed world, which has gone past that. Once the rest of the world joins them, the threat of global scale pollution is no longer a problem. This is something that's already fixable, just by staying out of the way for the most part. Even now, the current greatest polluter, China is making the first steps towards cleaning up its enormous mess. India will follow and sometime around the beginning of the next century so will Africa. That's what I consider the most likely outcome here.
Our people exploited? Welcome to cooperation where mutual exploitation (what most of us would call "working together" to use a less misleading term) for mutual gain is what civilization is all about.
Our people sick? Well, once again, in the developed world, they're healthier than they've ever been. So no.
and you would argue right up until the point of our collective death
Come up with an argument that's not shit. Show you're more than some self-loathing monster that would rather help us get better than kill us.
that is everything is fine
Everything is not fine. But your flavor of chicken little is a significant part of why everything isn't fine. There's way too many people out there that think we need to undergo harmful religious rituals of sacrifice and destruction to show how much we care. Maybe we should something productive instead, eh? Maybe we should fix actual problems, eh?
corporations are good for us
They have turned out to be a great way to organize people and do things together. They extend far past the business world and appear in both the non profit and public sectors as well. But what I think is particularly important here is the realization that nothing would improve, if we got rid of them. That's because none of what people consider problems of corporations really are. They're problems of the powerful and the wealthy given inordinate control of society.
money is speech
You can say whatever you want, when you want, how you want, you just can't spend a dime to do it. We'll see how influential your speech will be, when you aren't allowed to speak it via such economic restrictions.
Again, burn in hell. BURN. When your skins falls off, may it grow back. So it can burn again.
And may you one day get a clue. A CLUE. And then when that happens, may your brain grow a little bigger so that you can get another clue.
I think what is really sad here is that I have the moral high ground despite all your pointless insistence to the contrary. While we've heard of the Machiavelli maxim, its converse also holds. Means do not justify the ends. You can't ignore the consequences of your actions and still be moral. One should have moral means, moral ends, and moral outcomes. Without all three, you are excessively hurting people one way or another.