Ocean current system could shut down as early as 2025, leading to climate disaster

[amellom]

Well, not to sound depressing, but this does sort of make me glad to be kind of old. I probably won't live to see it come to pass and even if I do I won't live too long to suffer through it very long. It's already reached the point where just walking to the mailbox is a challenge in surviving the heat long enough to read the junk mail. It's not exactly chipper news for my grand kids though, but I never promised to live long enough for them to get to be my age anyway.

 

[amellom]

Woa, this is huge!

Why haven't I seen anything in the mainstream press?

History will show — to the next sentient species — that Homo sapiens went extinct from apathy.

Could be that the end of life as we know it isn't as much fun as seen on TV.. Good looking mutants don't sell on Hooeywood..

 

[amellom]

So can someone please explain how the sea levels differ on one coast and not the other? I thought the sea levels were due to tides not to ocean currents. You always have the same amount of water in a glass no matter where you are in the world.

Heat rises. Cold sinks. That's why wind exists.

 

[ryankm]

Those are the things I have time to type out right now, but there is a lot involved in predicting sea levels, including things like land subsidence and land-raising plate tectonics, too.

Yeah I'm
not saying humans dont have an impact either, but all these seweer lines and drain tile... They drain every swamp they can. We are losong soil 1000 times faster than it can be replaced. All down the drain to the Gulf of Mexico. Naturauly sea levels would rise. Than they cut down rainforest and wonder ehy it is so dry. "Must be fossil fuels"...

 

[ryankm]

So can someone please explain how the sea levels differ on one coast and not the other? I thought the sea levels were due to tides not to ocean currents. You always have the same amount of water in a glass no matter where you are in the world.

Earths gravity is stronger and weaker depending on where you are... Plus we have more rivers and polar ice melt going into the Atlantic than the Pacific. The Pacific has an average depth of 10000ft where the Atlantic is 5000ft.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Earths gravity is stronger and weaker depending on where you are... Plus we have more rivers and polar ice melt going into the Atlantic than the Pacific. The Pacific has an average depth of 10000ft where the Atlantic is 5000ft.

Those are not parameters that significantly affect the differences in the amount of sea level rise that will be experienced by different coasts in the world. The parameters that I mentioned will make the differences in the levels described in the report.

It is sometimes a bit counter-intuitive. For instance, if the Greenland Ice sheet melts sea lev will rise, but so will Greenland itself, but more slowly. Similarly with Antarctica. Parts of it that are now below "sea level" will eventually be above sea level, even though sea level would be higher. The reason is that the ice is pushing the land downward by its weight. Remove the weight of the ice, and the rock starts to move back upward. Where I live right now, the land has sunk about 3" in the last 40 years because, 25,000 years ago, it was not covered by ice, so it was pushed up as the nearby regions were pushed down by ice sheets up to 2 miles thick. The rocks are still moving to the melted equilibrium after 20,000 years after the ice melted. that is part of what the sea level will do to us here in the future. We can expect another couple of inches of land sinking in addition to (or is it part of) the 10-to-14 inches of water rising predicted by 2050.

 

[bolide]

I am not buying that as a real fact. The models are not good enough to support that. And the best evidence is not so supportive.

Geological evidence clearly shows sea levels higher than today in previous interglacial periods, and we really don't have climate models that can "predict" (actually "backcast") those climate histories. Which is really good evidence that we really do not yet understand all of the circulation changes, etc. that are involved, and cannot predict them very well for long periods of time.

It is normal for modelers to have more confidence in the accuracy of their models than turns out to be warranted. Usually, models drastically underestimate the uncertainty for the accuracy of their model predictions.

But, that doesn't mean that things will necessarily be better, they can also be worse than predicted. However, the media tends to hype the worst case results, which, when sometimes they don't actually happen, leads a lot of the public to think that models are always too negative.

If you look at the current situation in the Milankovitch Cycles, yes, it looks like the heat input to the northern hemisphere should be decreasing from its maximum. But, that doesn't mean that the northern hemisphere should immediately get colder. Think about the analog of a yearly cycle. The heat input to the northern hemisphere peaks about June 21st, but the hottest days are usually in July and August, substantially after the peak heat input. In the Milankovitch cycle, the Earth is now closest to the sun about January 4th and very slowly getting later in the year. and the northern hemisphere is tipped most toward the Sun about December 21st. Would you expect the hottest days in a year to have already occurred by the first week in July? Of course not, and you should also not expect the peak temperatures and sea level rise to occur when the perihelion is on Dec 21st or within a couple weeks of that.

It is the modeling of the behaviors of circulation and thermal reservoirs (ice, deep oceans, etc.) that is needed to translate heat inputs to climate. We are still in the first iteration of doing that, and we need to learn by doing it and comparing our results to what happens. Remember how bad our weather models used to be, and how unreliable they still are today once we get out several days. Well, climate modeling has not yet had the opportunity to do the thousands of predictions and leaning from the errors that our weather models have benefited from. So, we really cannot expect, and certainly cannot prove that they are even as accurate (in their own way) as our weather models have become.

That does not mean that I think global climate models are useless. But, I wish modelers would stop making such strong statements about their conclusions, because those are the types of statements that can be proven wrong, and that leads to people disregarding the model predictions completely.

Anyway, my point still stands, that we are not going to be able to stop the sea level from rising another foot no matter whether "100% of the warming today is caused by humans." I doubt we can even slow it down very much if we all left the planet tomorrow. But, we can certainly make things worse if we keep doing what we have been doing.

You got the solstice date/direction reversed.

 

[bolide]

This is exaggerated. Ocean currents are a result of the rotation pf the earth. There are some thermohaline curculations that accompany these coriolis driven currents which may be affected by changes in temperature such as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation but thus accompanies but does not drive the ocean circulations.

nice video by respected physicist:

View: https://youtu.be/tnVWUIhQ8dE

I think the point is not that temperature differences drive ocean currents, but rather that ocean currents drive heat transfer that moderates climate differences between North and South.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

You got the solstice date/direction reversed.

I don't think so. When do you think the solstice occurs and when do you think the perihelion occurs? And do you think perihelion is getting later or earlier in January over long periods of years?

 

[bolide]

I don't think so. When do you think the solstice occurs and when do you think the perihelion occurs? And do you think perihelion is getting later or earlier in January over long periods of years?

Where you said, "the northern hemisphere is tipped most toward the Sun about December 21st."

 

[Ken Fabian]

Demonstrate a solution, honestly, without subsidies that won't be available to anybody but the "early adopters", and then you can complain about people just not wanting to change, if they still won't do it.

No, that is not why - we start from where we are, not start at the finish line and most people understand that. Solar was hugely expensive and no-one but space agencies used it but now it is not only on vast numbers of privately owned homes but make up fast growing portions of the electricity people buy from power companies, whether aware of it or not. The most built new electricity in the world is now solar, more than all others combined, but it still takes time for that in combination with other fast growing clean energy technologies to displace the vast amounts of fossil fuel capacity - growth of which has had full support from climate science deniers. The first large grid scale batteries were installed only 6 years ago but now they are popping up everywhere.

Some of us expect technological progress in this area to be ongoing and the means will keep getting better - and become progressively more widely available; it does still surprise me that the extraordinary technoptimists at forums.space.com are so pessimistic about clean energy.The assumptions of clean energy options being worse options are just that, for all they are widely promoted and repeated endlessly to impede their deployment.

I see the combination of persistent well promoted and supported downplaying of the seriousness of global warming - that the consequences won't be serious - encouraging distrust in the science the concerns are based on, denying the extraordinary achievements of climate science and their validity, suggestions of hidden extremist agendas and conspiracy along with inciting of exaggerated fears of the costs and difficulties, including to political freedoms as well as prosperity, of concerted national and international efforts at addressing it. I note you are quite prepared to reject the science based estimations that we would be experiencing cooling without human activities, ie reject not just climate modeling but what is known of all the climate change forcings involved over that time, that those models were built around - like you think maybe there is a major missing natural component, that no-one has noticed and anthropogenic warming component is exaggerated - and you espouse many of those exaggerated fears of facing up to it that Doubt, Deny, Delay politicking has promoted.

When climate concerned people - who are mostly not extremists, Socialists or even Environmentalists - are joined by people who lean Right coming out from behind the Wall of Denial and facing up to it like it matters we will see more effective emissions reductions policies.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Right, I did write that part backwards.

The Milankovitch Cycles are complicated for calculating the total heat inputs to the northern and southern hemisphere, so to understand why we are supposed to be in a cooling period, now, I will just refer readers to a website. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles .

But, my point is still that the Earth's temperature profile lag the heat inputs profiles due to the thermal reservoirs in the ice caps and oceans. So, just because the heat input has peaked does not mean the temperatures should have peaked. It clearly does not do so in the annual cycle.

 

[Macadoodle]

Even if you believe in the climate change religion, there is still nothing we can do about it. Even purging all of humanity would not stop it. We need to mitigate while working on reasonable and doable long term solutions using new technologies. I have not seen any ideas from climate alarmists that would make any difference while at the same time impoverishing the worlds entire population. No I’m not going to live like a serf without a fight just so a bunch of virtue signalers can pretend they are making a difference.

Besides a warming climate is far less disastrous than a cooling one, so if we have managed to delay the next ice age it’s a good thing.

 

[Ken Fabian]

I think Macadoodle illustrates the success of Doubt, Deny, Delay politicking - it isn't science, it can't be fixed, it is all about extremists, fixing it will be worse than not fixing it. Science based facts or reason don't influence people like this - they have their own denial leaning sources for alleged facts and reason - and if the Wall of Denial the conservative-right has built to keep those who lean right from supporting strong climate policies does come down, they will continue to oppose.

 

[GeologistPete]

This major system, which transport heat from the tropics to the north Atlantic, are now at high risk of collapse due to human-induced climate change.

Ocean current system could shut down as early as 2025, leading to climate disaster : Read more

Get real! The only thing that would shut down our ocean currents is the shutting down of the geophysical activity on the ocean bottom. Do you really think that is likely? So, this is just alarmist extremists talking about something they know little about, or perhaps they are driven by something else? You tell me. I will stake my life on this comment - I am that sure. And if you would like, I would be happy to tell the world I told you so in 30 years. Thus, I would like everyone to just relax. It has near zero probability of happening. Peace and peace of mind.

 

[Jan Steinman]

The only thing that would shut down our ocean currents is the shutting down of the geophysical activity on the ocean bottom.

Are you saying that the "geophysical activity on the ocean bottom" has more influence on ocean currents than temperature has?

 

[Atlan0001]

As I predict, along with history, the climate disaster will be a new Ice Age, the norm of Earth now with only interludes, geologically short seasons, of warming. Of course, it's all Mankind's fault over the millions of years. Get rid of Mankind -- get rid of freedom, liberty, laissez faire frontier independence, frontier 'Exodus', frontier risks, chances, costs, casting the die on opening, shooting the works on opening, and so on -- thus imprisoning 'All Mankind' in a concentration camp world, and a 'A Brave New World" (a scientific police state's better, more perfect, world) of a better, more perfect, Mankind (Utopia / Camelot) will result.

 

[Ken Fabian]

As I predict, along with history, the climate disaster will be a new Ice Age, the norm of Earth now with only interludes, geologically short seasons, of warming. Of course, it's all Mankind's fault over the millions of years. Get rid of Mankind -- get rid of freedom, liberty, laissez faire frontier independence, frontier 'Exodus', frontier risks, chances, costs, casting the die on opening, shooting the works on opening, and so on -- thus imprisoning 'All Mankind' in a concentration camp world, and a 'A Brave New World" (a scientific police state's better, more perfect, world) of a better, more perfect, Mankind (Utopia / Camelot) will result.

And the deniers accuse climate concerned people of being overwhelmed by alarmist (as in false) fears!

Treating decades of top level expert advice and abundant evidence that we have a very serious climate problem as if it is true and something we need to address will somehow lead to getting rid of freedom, liberty, opportunities and will imprison humanity in a concentration camp world? Wow. So much fear! You think we can develop the technologies to open space to humanity but facing up to global warming with a transition low emissions energy is not only beyond us but will destroy us? And such astonishing alarmist fears - so bizarre as to be more widely known as conspiracy theories.

I don't find facing up to difficult reality with eyes open paralyzes me with fear; it does the opposite and eases my fears.

I have enormous optimism for human ingenuity and significant advances in clean energy technology are all around me - my home runs on solar power, at night too. And still exports more than enough electricity to run a future EV, which will get a lot cheaper as science and engineering and capitalist entrepreneurship works to develop better batteries. Compared to colonizing space addressing global warming is easy - and will be necessary to sustain a global economy that can afford large scale projects in space.

This is cause for optimism -

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fff02c92c-6cd8-41d4-9e87-3ed0abce0e96_850x1313.jpeg

 

[Atlan0001]

Fabian, you've not only called me a liar concerning the physics, you've called physicist Stephen Hawking and historian / ex-Congressional Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, among many others, liars. We are into civilization's decline, thanks largely to your kind of people and your constant tyrannical / anarchic disastrous societal, economic, and governmental failures. Nothing, I repeat "nothing," is more expensive than the physics of an insularly closed world like the physics of a child -- and its womb it remains locked into -- possessing all its structures, its infrastructure, its mass and energy, possessing everything needed for birth, becoming more and more past due for birth. That becomes expensive, ever more expensive, not only year by year, but day by day . . . felt, sensed, by more people every day, a complete cellular structure imperatively needing something more (the outland frontier) and being forbidden it so to make the womb a Utopian better world FIRST BEFORE OUTLAND FRONTIER!!!!

As we fight more wars, both horizontal and vertical, as more and more people become impoverished, as governments become poorer and more expensively tyrannical, you and your kind, as predicted above by not just me, will become less and less safe, as well as less opportunistically prosperous, in the insularly closed world you made and forced.

You think a declining population, too, one not exhausting and growing out to frontier, means a wealthier world for those who are in it. History's lines and the lessons of history (including natural history) should have taught you that you couldn't be more wrong regarding the dynamics of civilization and biology . . . that exactly the opposite is true. You people are so wrong in so many ways...!

 

[COLGeek]

We're done here folks. Thank you to those who contributed.