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Doomsday postponed? What to take from the big new Antarctica studies
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Doomsday postponed? What to take from the big new Antarctica studies
There’s grim, mixed news out about Antarctica.
Two new papers on melting Antarctic ice come just days after NASA scientists announced the discovery of a massive subterranean hole in West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, the Florida-sized hunk of ice which alone could unleash more than two feet of sea-level rise should it collapse.
One study found that all this melting could have surprising and profound impacts on weather while the other (controversial) study scaled back previous Doomsday estimates. Still, the takeaway from both studies is clear: If we keep on our current path, things could go downhill for humanity very, very quickly.
The worst-case scenario that’s emerging is shockingly bad
In the first paper, an international team of researchers examined the impacts of melting ice on global ocean circulation and weather patterns.
As relatively cool, salt-free meltwater spreads from Antarctica and Greenland across the world’s oceans, it will have dire impacts: The circulation of the Atlantic Ocean will slow, changing how the planet distributes heat, and prompting “a complex pattern of atmospheric and oceanic changes” worldwide, according to the paper.
Weather would worsen almost everywhere, with year-to-year swings in temperature and precipitation increasing in severity by more than 50 percent, especially in eastern North America.
New Zealand and Iceland may warm at a much slower rate than the rest of the world, but ice melt at both poles may actually quicken as heat from the rapidly warming tropical oceans is shunted below the surface where it can stay for hundreds of years. Sub-surface ocean currents would then be able to eat away at the undersides of polar glaciers even more quickly.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Scientists: Weak Ocean Circulation Could Signify Incoming Mini Ice Age
Scientists: Weak Ocean Circulation Could Signify Incoming Mini Ice Age
A weak circulation of ocean waters in the North Atlantic could signify that a mini ice age is just around the corner. Scientists have discovered the weakening currents look similar to those that happened right before the Little Ice Age, a cold spell observed between about 1600 and 1850 AD.
During the Little Ice Age, the Baltic Sea, along with many of the lakes and rivers in Europe froze over. And new and recent studies are showing that the currents in the North Atlantic ocean are at their lowest in 1,500 years. Scientists are about to blame a mini ice age on global warming climate change.
Researchers studied the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the branch of the North Atlantic circulation that brings warm surface water toward the Arctic and cold deep water toward the equator.
The research, co-led by Dr. Christelle Not and Dr. Benoit Thibodeau from the Department of Earth Sciences and the Swire Institute of Marine Science, The University of Hong Kong, is interpreted to be a direct consequence of global warming and associated melt of the Greenland Ice-Sheet.
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 Daily Mail
“The discovery of this new record of AMOC will enhance our understanding of its drivers and ultimately help us better comprehend potential near-future change under global warming,” said Dr. Thibodeau. “While we could ground-truth our temperature reconstruction for the 20th century against instrumental measurement it is not possible to do so for the Little Ice Age period, added Not. “Therefore, we need to conduct more analysis to consolidate this hypothesis.”
This weakening in the current is still vigorously debated because of the scarcity of long-term record of the AMOC.
