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from the don't-care-I-live-in-amundsen-scott-base dept.
The research co-led by Drs. Christelle Not and Benoit Thibodeau from the Department of Earth Sciences and the Swire Institute of Marine Science, The University of Hong Kong, highlights a dramatic weakening of the circulation during the 20th century that is interpreted to be a direct consequence of global warming and associated melt of the Greenland Ice-Sheet. This is important for near-future climate as slower circulation in the North Atlantic can yield profound change on both the North American and European climate but also on the African and Asian summer monsoon rainfall. The findings were recently published in the prestigious journal Geophysical Research Letters.
[...] Interestingly, the research team also found a weak signal during a period called the Little Ice Age (a cold spell observed between about 1600 and 1850 AD). While not as pronounced as the 20th century trend, the signal might confirm that this period was also characterized by a weaker circulation in the North Atlantic, which implies a decrease in the transfer of heat toward Europe, contributing to the cold temperature of this period. However, more work is needed to validate this hypothesis.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-11/tuoh-oci112318.php
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday December 03 2018, @07:05AM
True.
"But to continue with it: the US got off to a bad start as it was begun by a bunch of Calvinist zealots who got kicked out of 17th century England for being too Christian (stop and think about that sentence for a moment in context...terrifying, isn't it?)."
Except that it's a half truth at best. The colonies had different characters and compositions and your description only fits some of them. Massachusetts was founded by Puritans - which is one of the reasons why it has lost the vast majority of its early claims. New Hampshire and Rhode Island today exist as separate entities precisely because the puritans in Massachusetts Bay did not represent them. The Anglicans of Virginia were almost as oppressive as the Puritans of Mass. but Carolina was always more open, cast off the state church link more quickly, and unofficially welcomed dissenters (as long as they were protestant!) from the beginning.
The situation in the early US was nowhere near as dire as you paint. Unitarian universalism was the unofficial religion of the young republic - the fastest growing denomination even in states where it was prohibited. The situation was actually so *good* at the time that Virginian Thomas Jefferson, living in a state with an official religion (one to which he did not subscribe, and which he criticized relentlessly) could write "I rejoice that in this blessed country of free enquiry & belief, which has surrendered it’s creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of one only God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the US. who will not die an Unitarian" and "the pure and simple unity of the creator of the universe is now all but ascendant in the Eastern states; it is dawning in the West, and advancing towards the South; and I confidently expect that the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the United States."
So what went wrong? How did we get from TJ's generation to that of the Spanish-American war? Do you know?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?