Gulf Stream Slowdown in Progress? 109
peacefinder writes "Researchers report that one process which drives the Gulf Stream is slowing down. As that current is part of the global oceanic heat conveyor which keeps parts of Europe and North America warmer than would be expected for their latitudes, such a slowdown might lead to abrupt climate change."
great documentary on this (Score:5, Funny)
A chilling account.
As it were.
Nope, THIS: (Score:3, Funny)
is more appropriate...
Paul B.
Re:great documentary on this (Score:1, Funny)
Re:great documentary on this (Score:1)
I was laughing my ass off at that part in the movie. It was so ironic that after years of trying to turn back Mexicans (and other southern-country citizens) that Mexico was closing their borders to stop the influx of Americans fleeing to avoid freezing (and thus Americans cutting fences and crossing rivers).
History (Score:5, Insightful)
History of Gulf Stream (Score:5, Funny)
Water flowing
More water flowing
Even more water flowing
Water still flowing
Water flowing
Water flowing
Still interesting?
MOD ME DOWN! (Score:2)
Yes, climate will change... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, except for the 8,200y event, the climate has stood relatively still in the last 10 millenia. Coincidentally, the time were began to settle, started farming, mining. This whole idiotic civilisation tech-tree thing.
> if people go the way of the dinosaur, then so be it.
You may say, that I'm egoistical, but I find such a prospect in my life-time relatively disturbing.
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
I say again, at no point in earth's history has climate stood still.
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:4, Interesting)
Welcome to the anthropocene [innovations-report.de].
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just shallow, but I like taking the climate for granted.
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just lazy, but I like to leave it to my grandchildren. I can buy them a hill to build their house on.
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:3, Interesting)
My reasoning for this is that eons are defined by whatever principal force that affects the earth most profoundly changes. A short list:
The Hadean(4550 mya - 3800 mya), where the earth was cooling and life was impossible.
The Archaean(3800 mya - 2500
Antropean eon (Score:2)
Sure, sounds very reasonable. Let's just hope that our decendents gain the technology that will be needed to ensure that the anthropean eon isn't marked by a runaway greenhouse effect that boils the oceans and produces Venus's twin sister...
As
Re:Antropean eon (Score:1)
Re:Anthropean eon (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, if we only nudge it a little bit - because the polar caps will melt and that will lower the temperature of the oceans creating what we perceive as an ice age. But the overall amount of energy in our system is increasing, not decreasing. Liberating water from ice takes a ton of energy and only gives us the illusion of an overall cooling becau
Re:Anthropean eon (Score:2)
First, the "ice age" connection is not due to the energy it takes to melt ice. Rather it is due to the very topic of grandparent article. Namely the theory is that in the past the gulf stream shutdown (which is due to the fact that melted ice is less dense than salt water) led to a cooling of the European land mass, leading to extension of glaciers down from the north pole, leading to a higher albedo Earth, leading to cooling of the whole planet.
However, this time around
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2, Insightful)
Just like a computer may randomly crash after running for a long time, but will go down far more often when a human is using it.
Problem isn't just that we may kill ourselves. The problems is we may take a large chunk of everything else with us. However, the former problem should be bad enough.
I'm guessing you don't have and/or don't want children. I don't, but I do want them. I would l
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:3, Insightful)
You get a food pyramid that kills millions in an attempt to make them less fat (it actually makes them more fat!). Ask a heart surgeon - the FDA listening to early nutritional scientists directly led to the prevalence of heart attacks today.
If we make policy decisions based on early scientific projections, we may be shooting ourselves in the foot.
Personally, I believe that since our ability to effect
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:1)
You get a food pyramid that kills millions in an attempt to make them less fat (it actually makes them more fat!). Ask a heart surgeon - the FDA listening to early nutritional scientists directly led to the prevalence of heart attacks today.
Do you -honestly- believe that such a government sponsored group can truly be called "scientists"?
Or do you honestly believe that current food, health OR econo
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
I agree that a new power source would be nice (I like solar, myself), but an economy will always chose the long-term cheapest option acording to the consumers definitions of long-term and cheapest. If you want to affect change, change the consumers definition of long-t
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
On a macroscropic scale it is fairly simple to track overall patterns on a 10-25 year scale.
Far different processes. Do I think a few droughts or a few more hurricanes than normal matter much in the scheme of things? Nope. But consistent and constant changes in temperature, global wind patterns, etc, yes.
Or, in simpler terms, you're talking about weather, I'm talking about climate.
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:1)
well, sort of by definition, people can't go extinct in your lifetime.
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:3, Insightful)
At no point in earth's history has all life been wiped clean from it. The earth is fine; if people go the way of the dinosaur, then so be it.
You've stumbled upon the central lie of the "environmentalists movement". That is that it's all about "saving the planet". You're absolutely right, the planet is in no danger. Humanity of course, is in some danger.
As far as not caring about humanity, well you're entitled to your values. The vast majority of us don't want humanity to go away, people to suffer do
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:1)
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
> or not) to be exaggerated
Well, you say "rightly or not", but the evidence only tends to "appear to be exaggerated" to the very people who don't want to give up their Hummers and airconditioners and all of the other trappings that come with cheap fossil energy.
It may appear that the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is exaggerated to those folks, but to the vast, vast majority (not ALL, I said "vast majority") of people who are:
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:1)
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:3, Insightful)
Kindly name them. I'd LOVE to see an official quote where PETA says that we should kill humans to make room for wolves.
Political Environmentalists hold the historically shocking assertion that preventing damage to the biosphere* is more important than human profit. If you take even the most outrageous environmentalist group large enough to be
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
You can believe that there is something more important than A without being against A.
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:1)
David Kupelian of World Net Daily considers [worldnetdaily.com] PETA's official non-committal stance on abortion to be saying that an animal's life is worth saving, a human babies isn't.
I would say that PETA does consider animal life to be at least equal if not supperior to human life.
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
Which was, in that same paragraph, an argument that parents should be allowed to euthanize. Just like the owners of a sick rat can kill it.
David Kupelian of World Net Daily considers PETA's official non-committal stance on abortion to be saying that an animal's life is worth saving, a human babies isn't.
The question for abortion is "is a fetus a legal person?" An
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
Yet IIRC, isn't the Number 2 person at PETA taking Insulin that is not only a result of animl research, but contains animal products?
The fundamental philosophy of the most vocal group of "environmentalists" is that I should treat the planet (or something) as being more important than human life.
--
Kindly name them. I'd LOVE to see an official quote where PETA says that we should kill humans to make room for wolves.
Ah posit a known fals
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
Veganism and environmentalism aren't synonyms. On a given day you might find me acting quite like an environmentalist, but you'll never see me acting like a vegan.
This answer does in fact state a position that animals are mroe valuable than humans.
No, it doesn't. In fact, by strict numbers, it says that animals are 1/10th as valueable as humans--but that the cost of a
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
Veganism and environmentalism aren't synonyms. On a given day you might find me acting quite like an environmentalist, but you'll never see me acting like a vegan.
True, but she calls for an end to Medical research and products made by animal research/use. She is living solely because of the research she wants to end.
No, it doesn't. In fact, by strict numbers, it says that animals are 1/10th as valueable as humans--but that the cost of a murder is far higher than the price of saving 10,000 lives.
Sorry
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
No... go back and read it again.
"Is 1 child's death worth saving 10,000? What about 10 puppies?"
So, 1 human life is worth more than 10,000 saves. And 10 puppy-lives are worth more than 10,000 saves--so, by the only equal metere there, 1 human = 10 puppies.
That assumes the right to get drunk and endanger others exists.
It does. Try this: lease a racing track--one with walls large enough to smash into a 100 mph and not hurt anyone. Then get plastered. Then drive.
You h
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
"Is 1 child's death worth saving 10,000? What about 10 puppies?"
So, 1 human life is worth more than 10,000 saves. And 10 puppy-lives are worth more than 10,000 saves--so, by the only equal metere there, 1 human = 10 puppies.
I see the problem: we are reading entirely different answers The FAQ I referenced makes no mentions of puppies or a child.
Specifically it says:
The original answe
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
First line in the friggin response.
The fact is, everytime someone asks about animals and rights, they fall back to the retarded child, the retarded orphan. WHy> Their position is that retarded people and animals neither can utilize their rights, nor understand them. Yet they retain them despite the physical incapability to even grasp them. If animals can have their reproductive rights usurped "for the
Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
The fundamental philosophy of the most vocal group of "environmentalists" is that I should treat the planet (or something) as being more important than human life.
And you're expressing the fundamental philosophy of the most vocal corporate public relations departments -- that human life is somehow separate and independent of the global environment. We can't thrive without a healthy environment. We can't exist without a reasonably functional environment.
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
Of course. I'm not saying "let's go destroy us some environment"; merely that I should preserve and improve the environment for my benefit (because I'm a part of it), not to my detriment.
Maybe you could expand on the idea that preserving the environment could work to your detriment. You know your lifestyle in unsustainable. Why keep delaying the inevitable and further reducing our options? Either we adjust willingly or we have reality thrust upon us in incredibly painful ways. Your anti-environmentalis
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
Anyway, as to your point: nothing is "sustainable". It's a fact of the universe. Living your life with minimal impact on the world is nice and Zen and all, but that's the strategy of "delaying the inevitable", not anything I've ever talked about. You can keep on being "sustainable" right up to the (inevitable, as far as you or I know at the moment) heat death
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
I'm sorry that you feel persecuted because you can't understand what I'm saying, but don't take it personally.
The arrogance of the wealthy elite is sometimes quite enlightening. I think you're revealing more about yourself than you realize.
Anyway, as to your point: nothing is "sustainable".
Then why is that word in the English language?
It's a fact of the universe. Living your life with minimal impact on the world is nice and Zen and all, but that's the strategy of "delaying the inevitable", n
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
The majority of your post is a mass of unfounded hyperbole with no relation to anything I've ever said..."
Even though I quoted back your exact words before my comments? Way to have courage and stand behind your words, dude. Let me know when you want your spine back.
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
The t
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
There are people who feel that the propper balance is to have no technology higher than domesticated animals. There are others that believe that poisoning a lake is a fair trade for jet aircraft.
And those people would be classified as extremists. I love to hear people toss that crap out there -- a little misdirection to conflate environmentalists with Luddites. The people who want to poison the lakes seem to be in charge, though.
There is a question how much value "nature" presents.
The truely di
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
Unfortunately, all this shows is that you are an extremist by the measures we use in society. Probably those around you are also extremists, so you do not have any external perspective. One of the most important lessons to learn in life is to listen to those that you disagree with - you cannot learn by listening to those that you agree with.
In the
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
Unfortunately, all this shows is that you are an extremist by the measures we use in society.
Who is this self-proclaimed "we?" You act as if you and your imaginary "we" have a monopoly on the definition of extremism. That's pure totalitarian thinking -- as if your thinking is pure and therefore uniquely qualified to make this determination. I call that cultural correctness.
Probably those around you are also extremists, so you do not have any external perspective. One of the most important lessons t
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
I am sorry if I offended you - I was trying to state my point of view, not to attack yours. "We" is meant to include the public will, as currently implemented by the government. You seem to believe that excludes you.
On my using a "teacher's voice," I do need to watch that. I honestly care about other people, and want them to succeed - and I often see people doing things I think will hurt themselves in the end. Perhaps that comes off wrong. Anyway, what I
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
Your probably are a troll, but just in case...
I'm a troll? I've brought plenty of facts to this debate that you just seem to want to ignore or wish away with your fingers in your ears, and somehow I'm the troll? You truly are delusional.
I'm actually just driving a wedge into you to pry open and expose your hypocrisy. Thanks for cooperating.
"We" is meant to include the public will, as currently implemented by the government. You seem to believe that excludes you.
Let me explain something to
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
As it is, I'm afraid any discussion with you is pointless.
Re:Perfect corporatist viewpoint (Score:2)
Re:Yes, climate will change... (Score:2)
Amiga Midwinter! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Amiga Midwinter! (Score:1)
Scary! (Score:1, Redundant)
Guess I picked the right time... (Score:4, Funny)
Now all I have to worry about is the ground shaking and opening up, me falling in to the resulting hole, then being covered by a mudslide with a bushfire on top.
Oh, and maybe bears and mountain lions feasting on my protruding limbs as I flail for help.
But at least I'll be warm.
Re:Guess I picked the right time... (Score:2)
Demise of the Maya (Score:5, Interesting)
A TV program a while back highlighted research investigating just why huge indigenous populations of Central America mysteriously disappeared around 800.
Lakebed sediment cores suggested a fairly severe multi-year drought around that time that was linked (through that Atlantic conveyor) to some severe winters in northern Europe. That drought was thought to disrupt agriculture that those cultures relied upon.
Re:Demise of the Maya (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Demise of the Maya (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Demise of the Maya (Score:2)
Re:Demise of the Maya (Score:2)
Large population centers in Europe experience significant drops in temperature and South America experiences consecutive droughts.
Or most of the globe warms up resulting in fairly dramatic shifts in locations of arable lands and significant increase in disease vectors.
Either scenario represents a disruptive event to today's societies.
Re:Demise of the Maya (Score:2)
Darn (Score:4, Interesting)
The only downsides have been a few pesky forest fires, and annual water restrictions.
Re:Darn (Score:1)
Re:Darn (Score:1)
I was half joking about the global warming, but on a serious level I have witnessed a change in climate.
Anecdotally:
I live in Vancouver. Being a coastal city it is warmer than the rest of Canada, and the temperature has never stayed below freezing for very long, but when I was a kid we used to have at least one good cold snap a year that would last long enough (a week or so) that we could go skating on the local ponds.
During the ten years that I was in High School, and college we seemed to have a c
Re:Darn (Score:2)
10 years ago, there was snow up to my waist for at least 4 months out of the year. Last year, I had to shovel exactly twice, and realistically I coud have used a broom to sweep aside the white dust that passes for snow.
Unfortunately, while the climate change has spared us from hours of chopping away at icy chunks of snow that barricade us inside our houses, it hasn't stopped the bloody cold weather. So, now all those plants that used to get covered by
negative nancy (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's not forget the advantages... (Score:2, Informative)
No more people moving from NY/VT/NH to Florida, etc., for the climate and ruining our tax base!
pretty predictable responses (Score:3, Interesting)
Who is going to make those comments? (Score:1)
The flip-side to buffering trading partners from disaster (mutually beneficial) is being desimated by enormous disasters they encounter.
International trade has never been greater.
A deep freeze in Europe would probably throw the whole world into a depression, not to mention send luddites panicking in the streets.
We're all in this together, unfortunately. When a significant part of the globe gets fucked up, the eco
Project Argo should confirm this (Score:2, Informative)
"The thermohaline circulation is a global ocean circulation. It is driven by differences in the density of the sea water which is controlled by temperature (thermal) and salinity (haline). In the North Atlantic it transports warm and salty water to the North."
Since the Argo [slashdot.org] project measures [ucsd.edu] these attributes along with current direction and possibly speed, it is the perfect way to either confirm or disconfirm this finding. If Dr. Wadhams is correct, in his prediction that the poler
A quick synopsis (Score:2)
Recent measurements show that one of the three mechanisms believed to drive the Gulf Stream is decreasing more than expected. The result could be that the Gulf Stream turns off, meaning that warm currents from the equator are no longer brought to Northern Europe and North East America. This may happen in a decade, which might decrease our temperature by 5-8 degrees. Or it might happen over the next couple of centuries, which might actually be beneficial because it could counteract globa
Re:A quick synopsis (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds to me like a natural thermostat.
Also a lower temperature sea will increase the likelyhood of dissolving the extra CO2 into the seawater.
Most of this kind of research (models) are focused on extrapolation [thefreedictionary.com] in this case the time-frame (using a couple of years +-100 to predict too much 800 or more and using limited knowledge gained from other sources su
Re:A quick synopsis (Score:2)
Considering:
"The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased by 31% above pre-industrial levels since 1750. This is considerably higher than at any time during the last 420,000 years, the period for which reliable data has been extracted from ice cores."
The historical average, called the "stable level" is about 280ppm. The highest *recent* peak we've seen is, IIRC, 380ppm. There is nothing to indicate, even current levels and rates of increase, a doubling of atmospheric
Re:A quick synopsis (Score:2)
Now if you look at your data (380 - 280)/ (2005 - 1750) = 100ppm / 255 years or 0.4 PPM / year which is much lower than 1.5ppm. But last year was 1.5 PPM so what's going on? Well I guess the rate is increasing over time. So I guess someone looking at your data would assume that over the next 70 years we will increase by mo
Re:A quick synopsis (Score:2)
Re:A quick synopsis (Score:2)
My point exactly. And if you don't know, don't go off half cocked trying the fix something you don't understand. In other words:
Re:A quick synopsis (Score:2)
Yes, it does. But the history records of coal production do not reliably show mass use of coal in until the late 1800's. But for sake of argument, we'll leave the 1750 date alone for now.
According to prevailing carbon cycle change windows, *if* one attributes *all* of the increase in CO2 levels since 1750 to humans, we are curr
Re:A quick synopsis (Score:2)
Now I have never look at the "real" data all that closely but I just want to point out some things.
While coal was not the only fuel source in the industrial revolution people switched to it after they ran out of wood.
As I said Oil is not the only source if CO2 we need to look at. You need to note how much total CO
Re:So what do we do? (Score:5, Informative)
You sound like a typical American who is too busy whining and consuming to educate yourself and do something productive or beneficial.
So let me make a few corrections to your uneducated diatribe:
Wind farms don't really generate enough power to make the disruption to the local environs worth it, although there is work being done on high altitude wind generation strategies that are promising.
Nuke: Most people are so much Anti-Nuke as they are Anti-Huge Catastrophe or Anti-Waste that's dangerous for zillions of years. Maybe if someone actually ran a successful nuclear power generation site that both made money and did not generate waste capable of killing large numbers of people, attitudes would change. But the Americans, French and Japanese are still running ancient nukes at a loss, and the Germans gave up on the newest 7th generation because they couldn't make is safe enough (the Chinese are still trying though).
Oil: Man, where did you get the forest thing? There are so many things wrong with oil I don't know where to start, 1: to buy oil you must deal with Bad People (tm), 2: Oil will not last forever and when it does run out society is screwed. 3: Burning Oil causes air pollution 4: Burning Oil contributes to global climate change.
Coal: Burning coal is worse than oil in all cases, still there is work being done on coal gasification which is promising.
Most hydrogen does not come from electrolysis of water, it comes from cracking natural gas. Still that's just as useless as electrolysis, though lots of clever folks are working on other methods. The one I find most interesting is using microbes & biomass.
So your summary becomes "So there is no one answer, that meets the world's energy needs, that is known today. However there are many, many possibilities. However, none of those possibilities yield so much energy as to allow for the rampant consumerism and gluttony that we see today. So something must change; either the reduction of consumption, the invention of a new energy source (like cold fusion) or both"
Re:So what do we do? (Score:1)
You are also wrong about wind farms. There's a huge one not far from my parents' place. The San Gorgonio Pass http://www.awea.org/projects/california.html#SanGo rgonioPass [awea.org], as you can see in the link, was estimated to generate about 800 M kWh in 1998. I may not work for So. Cal Edison, but I'm judging they feel it
Re:So what do we do? (Score:2)
Most coal gasification projects significantly reduce the amount of radioactive coal waste output. I don't think it makes sense to accept radio active waste in the atmosphere from any source. Nor do I think it makes sense to operate a nuclear re
Re:So what do we do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really. The actual risk of nuclear power plants is quite small. Stack the lives lost by every single nuclear accident or byproduct storage, or even the theoretical lives lost (which is actually zero so feel free to not do that) due to working in the industry over the last 50 years against a decade or even a few years of coal.
Chernobyl was the classic cas
The Solution!!! (Score:2)
Take the third world population and have them run in People Wheels(tm) just like hamster wheels, to generate electricity! After they have run themselves to death we can recycle them as feed for the next generation of people wheels.....
Yes, its sarcasm, get over it.
Re:So what do we do? (Score:2)
Re:So what do we do? (Score:1)
Re:So what do we do? (Score:1)
Well, we know that there is one very effective way of lowering temperatures: large volcanic eruptions. We have enough nukes to create this effect on our own in a controlled way, and enough processing power to try to get it right. To me, this would seem to be one of the few approaches that could be used to buy us some time to invest in new technologies that would help us out in the long term.
Also, for those who are interested, the New Yorker just ran an interesting-but-depressing three-par
Re:So what do we do? (Score:1)
It's safe, clean and environmentally friendly, plus the current thinking is for distributed collection at each building, where excess energy that can't be stored can be shared with others via the electricity grid.
Seems like the most promising energy replacement to me...
Re:So what do we do? (Score:2)
Re:So what do we do? (Score:1)
Yes. Large power plants can generate power more efficiently while at the same time are able to more effectively put pollution controls in place. While they can put scrubbers and filters on their smokestacks, you would never see that on a car's exhaust.
Where does this fallacy come from...? (Score:2)
They must be teaching only one method of hydrogen production in schools these days, that of "electrolysis". Strangely enough, this method seems to be the only method the public "knows" about to produce hydrogen. In fact, it is so "known", that one time I went to an alternative energy show here in Phoenix, and some representatives of "hydr