The extreme heat wave raging across the globe and others are getting a month’s rain in a couple of hours….so I guess I will bow to social convention and post on this situation.
I live in the deep South and since about late May we have been in a heat cycle with little to no rain….in the past couple of days our evening lows went from 90s to mid-70s….a welcome rest from the oppressive heat….our days are still pushing the 100 mark but at least the night is close to comfortable.
The news and the blogs have been awash with weather stories and dire predictions….so not to be the only blogger not jumping on that bandwagon I will relent and post a little something.
We all have heard of the Gulf Stream, but what is and what does it do?
The Gulf Stream is a small part of something called the ‘thermohaline circulation’ or ‘Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation’. This is a large, global-scale ocean conveyor belt driven by differences in temperature and salt content – the water’s density.
Originating at the tip of Florida, the Gulf Stream is a warm and swift Atlantic Ocean current that follows the eastern coastline of the US and Canada before crossing the Atlantic Ocean towards Europe. It ensures that the climate of Western Europe is much warmer than it would otherwise be.
As warm water flows from the equator to the poles it cools and some evaporation occurs, which increases the amount of salt. Low temperature and a high salt content means high density and the water sinks deep in the oceans. The cold, dense water also moves slowly. Eventually, it gets pulled back to the surface and warms in a process called “upwelling” and the circulation is complete.
This global process makes sure that the world’s oceans are continually mixed, and that heat and energy are distributed to all parts of the earth. This in turn contributes to the climate we experience today.
Now that that piece of knowledge has been dropped….could there be a change coming?
One of the climate change tipping points scientists are most worried about could arrive sooner than expected, with potentially disastrous consequences for billions of people, according to new research. In a study published in the journal Nature, Danish researcher Peter
Ditlevsen, a climate scientist, and his sister Susanne Ditlevsen, a professor of statistics, said their analysis suggests that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation—AMOC—network of ocean currents, which includes the Gulf Stream, could collapse before the end of this century. They said AMOC could severely weaken or shut down as soon as 2025 or as late as 2095, though the most likely time is midcentury under the “current scenario of future emissions, the New York Times reports.
The AMOC moves warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, but melting ice is a major problem, the researchers say. “Greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming, which speeds up the melting of Greenland ice,” the Ditlevsens explain to USA Today. “The melted freshwater entering the North Atlantic can then disrupt the AMOC, potentially causing major climate disruptions.” The extra freshwater, they say, is “lighter than the salty seawater around it” and can “disrupt the normal sinking of the salty water, weakening or even shutting down the AMOC.” If the AMOC is shut down disrupted, it could cool Europe and North America by a few degrees—but there would also be sea level rises and huge disruptions to rainfall in North America and beyond.
The change would disrupt agriculture in Asia, South America, and Africa, endangering the food supply for billions, the Guardian reports. “This would be a very, very large change,” Peter Ditlevsen says. “The AMOC has not been shut off for 12,000 years.” He says the research shows the urgent need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. While other scientists agree on the need to reduce emissions, some disagree with the Ditlevsens’ analysis, saying there is still much uncertainty about the tipping point for the AMOC and any collapse. One problem with the statistical analysis other researchers pointed to was the use of potentially inaccurate records going back to 1870
There you go….my little effort to give some knowledge about the future and the insane weather the world is dealing with these days…..
The next thing is….if change arrives where will we live?
To date, the climate migrations that have attracted federal policy attention in the United States generally have fallen under the category of “managed retreat.” Recall, for instance, the 2016 headlines announcing that Isle de Jean Charles, La., would receive $48 million in federal funds for a first-of-its-kind wholesale community resettlement project, or the Biden administration’s announcement last year that it had awarded $75 million to Indigenous communities in Alaska and Washington state to pack up and move. “Managed retreat,” or the planned relocation of vulnerable coastal communities to higher ground, is at once a proactive tactical move and an act of resignation—an acknowledgment that, in a warming world, some geographic communities are fated to disappear into the sea. But what should we make of this intense political fixation on managed retreat? And when climate migration policies prioritize the most extraordinary and poignant cases, who is left behind?
https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/climate-change-flooding-displacement/
Enough for now….but I will have more to say….I always have more to say….
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
