Impending sudden climate change? - alarming report from Woods Hole

Byron · 2003-03-05 07:23:29

Shaun, this may be of particular interest to you...it certainly is for me!

I've recently come across a report recently released by the good folks at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that should give all of us, at the very least, cause for concern, and this is a prime example of why all types of scientific exploration and research is so vitally important to the continued well-being of the entire human race...

There has been increasing evidence of the possibility of sudden and dramatic changes in the climate of the Northern hemisphere, which a growing cadre of climatologists think could be triggered caused by a stoppage of the great "ocean conveyor belt" that circulates warm and cold water throughout the globe. It seems that when large amounts of fresh water accumulates in the North Atlantic (which is taking place at the current time, according to the Wood Hole report released in late Jan of this year), the water in the North Atlantic fails to "turn over", which in turn stops up the Gulf Stream, which we all know greatly moderates the climate of western Europe.

If a sudden shift to cold were to take place in the most densely populated areas of the globe, it could cause great social upheaval, as crops fail and severe energy shortages develop. Here in the U.S. the picture is less clear exactly what would happen, except severe droughts and extreme weather would be much more likely in this new climate regime. Down here in southern Florida, we have broken heat records 3 out of the past 4 days (even though the northern U.S. is in the deep freeze), with no break in this heat wave forecast until this weekend..an extreme event for any time of the year, especially so for late winter, and the sea surface temps are much higher than they should be for this time of the year, which makes me wonder if the Gulf Stream is failing to move the excess heat out of this part of the globe as it should. (Just my personal opinion, btw).

Am I just getting overly worked up here, or is this something that we *really* should be worried about? I'd like to hear what you guys think...

B

Bill White · 2003-03-05 11:16:43

Byron - what is the Wood Hole link?

Here is a book that goes into the science of this rather deeply - Climate flip flop
.

Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Alley, a participant in five expeditions to Greenland and three to Antarctica, well explains how the ice caps in both places record climate history, how to read those records in cylinders of bored ice, and what they reveal about changes in climate. He waits until the end to discuss the possibility of disaster, which, unfortunately, he thinks is highly likely, perhaps soon. The ice borings disclose a history of sudden changes in a continuity that is predominantly much colder than the period during which humanity has developed. Moreover, change can be triggered by "pushes" as large as continental drift or as seemingly puny as a change in the atmospheric balance of greenhouse gases. The latter can slow or stop the huge oceanic "conveyor belt" that warms the North Atlantic, and then habitable, cultivable lands shrink due to plummeting temperatures and reduced precipitation. Is doom inevitable in our time? Given current knowledge, we can't say. But proceeding as if humanity could affect climate change is only prudent. Wonderfully accessible, information-packed science reading. Ray Olson
Copyright ? American Library Association. All rights reserved

Also, if you google William Calvin he has written extensively on the possibility of precisely this type of climate flip flop.

One link - scroll down and you will find articles on climate flip flops and the evolution of humans

IMHO - this is rather like the possibility of an asteroid impact except there is no way to really assess the odds. Given current political events, to bury Germany under a glacier wouldn't be too terrible for most US residents but since England would suffer the same fate maybe it isn't so good

Byron · 2003-03-05 11:28:23

Here's the link the Woods Hole website...sorry, I didn't think to post it earlier...

Woods Hole

B

Byron · 2003-03-05 12:01:47

Hey Bill, I have that book in that link you posted, The Two-Mile Time Machine, although I didn't pay anywhere close to $35 for it... Good read, though.

Another fascinating book that I got at the same time (yes, I'm an Amazon junkie too...lol) is a book called the "The Little Ice Age," which discusses the effects of a temporary cooling of the climate between 1300-1850, and the negative effects it had upon the people of Europe at the time. After reading that one, I feel that it's not so much the direct effects of the climate is what made life so difficult for the Europeans, but rather the inability / unwillingness to adapt to the changing climate, such as planting different crops, etc.

If this sort of dramatic climate change was to occur today, I would have to think that we would find ourselves in a similar predictiment, as people simply don't want to change and adapt even when logic dictates that they do so, especially when it comes to national governments and the like.

That's what worries me the most... ???

B

Josh Cryer · 2003-03-05 13:12:56

I like his argument that both warming and cooling could occur at the same time. It sounds much more plausible than a complete shutdown. This is why the little ice age only affected Europe.

Of course, I'm sure some would dumb down the importance of the great ocean conveyer, so the whole concept may simply pass in one ear and out the other.

Bill White · 2003-03-05 13:44:54

I am almost ashamed to admit that a few years ago I bought this book - The Coming Global Superstorm - in a moment of weakness at a local bookstore.

Rather like buying the National Enquirer, a guilty pleasure at best. :-)

Anyway - it is a lurid novelization of of the climate flip flop with some very unlikely stuff about quick freeze downdrafts. But it was kind of fun to read in the Poseidon Adventure disaster genre.

Josh Cryer · 2003-03-05 13:48:54

Tip: if it's by Art Bell, regard it as fiction.

Bill White · 2003-03-05 13:54:12

Tip: if it's by Art Bell, regard it as fiction

Hey - I did say it was like buying the National Enquirer - but it was fun to read.

His key "evidence" for sudden flash freezing downdrafts from the stratosphere is the claim that undigested flowers have been found in the stomachs of frozen woolly mammoths - as if the animals were quick frozen in a matter of minutes.

Lurid and not at all plausible but so is most sci-fi isn't it? Many of the amazon.com reader's comments seem to hit the nail on the head.

But then Woods Hole isn't exactly Art Bell, right?

clark · 2003-03-05 14:14:04

I once argued that global warming was not happening. That the science was inconclusive, and there was just as many publications reporting opposite findings as those who predicted global warming.

Of course what i shied away from in making my argument is that almost all of the evidence, on either side, conclude that global warming due to human actions will happen, given enough time.

Here is something to consider if we accept the sudden-shift hypothesis: Wouldn't any major shift in climate, such as the creation of a mini ice age in Europe, droughts in North America, and other calamities elsewhere, lead to a massive loss in population? Even barring that, I might imagien that such events would strain the global economy, and reduce our ability to expand and pollute.

If a third of the human population died off from the climate shift, wouldn't that counter-balance the pollution created by our current population, thereby casuing the climate to begin shifting back?

My ignorance really lies in the science behind gloabl thermal regulation- how much can our climate shift before becoming stuck in some new, and bad, equilibrium?

Bill White · 2003-03-05 14:58:09

If a third of the human population died off from the climate shift, wouldn't that counter-balance the pollution created by our current population, thereby casuing the climate to begin shifting back?

My understanding is that the answer is YES - if looked at from a perspective of centuries. Apparently similar rapid climate shifts happen rather frequently from the perspective of geological time. Short term, however, increased snow and ice over the northern hemisphere reduce insolation making the north much colder and without the heat transport from the equator northwards the equatorial regions get hotter.

This same process might well re-start the Gulf Stream "naturally" but no one knows how long it would take since no one really knows all the details of salt circulation model anyway. A few years and maybe the consequences are not so bad. A century? The northern nations would likely use their militaries to re-settle populations rather than dying off peacefully.

Human intervention to restore the ocean currents that transport heat to the northern hemisphere include some pretty major feats of planetary engineering. One suggestion was to dam the Straits of Gibraltar - but I forget how this was supposed to help. Another suggestion was to open a clear water channel across Panama (via nuclear excavation) and the resulting Pacific/Atlantic circulation supposedly would re-start the Gulf Stream.

Sounds like terra-forming to me.

I also have read that absolute global warming is pretty much irrelevant to this process. Slight warming of the Greenland ice sheets which adds fresh water to the Icelandic Sea can "turn off" the Gulf Stream salt conveyor even if average or mean world temperatures remain essentially unchanged. Also, an average +5 degrees at the equator doesn't really balance -5 degrees at the latitude of Iowa if our goal is growing wheat or corn.

Anyway - I view this "threat" as being rather like the threat from asteroids. A remote but very real risk (Tanguska was quite real after all) yet until lots more basic science is done there is little we humans can do about it.

Back on the terra-forming angle - a few years ago Wired magazine ran a piece about how seeding the ocean with the right nutrients could cause a plankton "boom" sucking large amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere and then sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Do it just right and the greenhouse effect is stopped - do it too much and bingo - instant ice age.

Byron · 2003-03-05 15:35:30

I am almost ashamed to admit that a few years ago I bought this book - The Coming Global Superstorm - in a moment of weakness at a local bookstore.
Rather like buying the National Enquirer, a guilty pleasure at best. :-)

Don't feel so bad, Bill, I have that exact same book on my shelf...he he

We are all subject to moments of weakness from time to time..lol.

Despite its inplausibility, it was still a fun read...

B

Palomar · 2003-03-05 15:37:51

Down here in southern Florida, we have broken heat records 3 out of the past 4 days (even though the northern U.S. is in the deep freeze),

*Yep. My sister is freezing her rear-end off in northern Iowa as I write this. I think she might appreciate the gesture, Byron, if you were to stand outdoors with, say, maybe a big piece of flat cardboard and energetically fan some of the hot air northward...you never know, it just might help the freezing northerners (after all, if the stroke of a butterfly's wings in Beijing...)

--Cindy :laugh:

P.S.: It's currently unusually cool where I live; roughly 7 to 8 degrees cooler than the norm. I don't recall, in the 11 years I've lived here, ever having to wear a jacket while hanging the wash on the clothesline, in March!

Palomar · 2003-03-05 15:42:37

I am almost ashamed to admit that a few years ago I bought this book - The Coming Global Superstorm - in a moment of weakness at a local bookstore.
Rather like buying the National Enquirer, a guilty pleasure at best. :-)
Anyway - it is a lurid novelization of of the climate flip flop with some very unlikely stuff about quick freeze downdrafts. But it was kind of fun to read in the Poseidon Adventure disaster genre.

*No offense, Bill, but I saw that very book a year or so ago. I wrote it off as pandering to fear after picking it up, reading the dust jacket and back panel. I was trying hard to recall the title a few months ago, to comment on the book in a different thread here at New Mars (I forget which thread).

There have been so many books devoted to cataclysms, etc. (which never come to pass). I guess I got really tired of it as a kid; my parents and their friends/acquaintances fed continually on this kind of stuff. The world was going to end with the "Alignment of the Planets in 1982!"

Well, it's 2003...we're still here.

Of course, knowing my luck, the book you mention will probably be THE book which forecasts precisely events that WILL come to pass... {sigh}

--Cindy

Shaun Barrett · 2003-03-05 19:06:17

Hi Byron!
It's interesting you should bring up the subject of the Great Ocean Conveyor. While you were otherwise engaged recently, I brought up that very subject over at 'Terraformation, Marsian Oceans' (in January).
I made the error of expressing my opinion that maybe we don't know anywhere near as much about climate change as we'd like to imagine. I then, rather foolishly, took things too far in daring to suggest that maybe a lot of what we're told is as much politics as science!

Anyhow, I had a bit of a run-in with one of our friendly neighbourhood commissars and a few words were exchanged! (No offence, Josh )
In the end, we parted on the best of terms by agreeing to disagree on a few details.

But the point is, you may be interested to check out the comments made in your absence.

Josh Cryer · 2003-03-05 21:33:03

Bleh, I just reread that thread, and I agreed with you that a lot of scientific issues become political, in a nutshell.

Personally, I'm not afraid one way or the other. If, as clark says, the world shuts down, it could do us some good (as mean as this may sound). But there's one point where I would disagree with what he said. clark said, ?If a third of the human population died off from the climate shift, wouldn't that counter-balance the pollution created by our current population, thereby casuing the climate to begin shifting back??

I don't think so. Pollution is not a population density problem. Pollution is a standard of living issue, and has for the most part nothing to do with the worlds global population. A very very many number people in the world don't own vehicles or use electricity, and any firewood or whatever they use from their local environment is replaced by new growth and so on. So it's unfair to say that those populations are the culprit.

Indeed, one could probably effectively argue that with a small ice age, industrial nations will have to adapt; stop feeding off small third world nations, and begin to become more self sufficient on their own, this includes being more efficient, which means less pollution. Of course, since the larger nations wouldn't want to release their debts on the third world nations, it could be worse off for the third worlders. But at least we'd have a situation where nations were forced to adapt to be in a more viable long term position. And then, the third world nations would be able to use whatever technology is created for their own good.

Josh Cryer · 2003-03-05 21:50:03

Oh! Bill, two points I wanted to respond to.

But then Woods Hole isn't exactly Art Bell, right?

From what I see, they seem pretty repetuable. And their report, at least, the one Byron, linked didn't seem reactionary at all. I mean, I would find it hard for people on both sides of the table to be offended or what have you.

One suggestion was to dam the Straits of Gibraltar - but I forget how this was supposed to help.

If you look at GOC models, most notably the Gulf Stream, you'll see that it sort of arches somewhat, and pokes at New York or thereabouts. If you look at a world map, you'll also note, that the Straits of Gibraltar are on the opposite side of this ?bending.?

(Actually, the picture on the site Byron linked pretty much shows what I'm talking about.)

Basically we have the same cycling that occurs in the whole of the GOC there at the straits. Warm Atlantic water flows into the Mediterranean, and cold Mediterranean water flows back out; and we're talking vast ammounts of water, some 3 million cubic feet per second! Hell, if you want energy, screw damming the thing up, just put in some underwater watermills (like windmills)!

And yeah, the main reason we'd dam up the Mediterranean is for electricity; more electricity than all of Africa and Europe would ever need. But it could (with a little imagination) also contribute to the salt contents of the oceans, helping the GOC work more efficiently.

Byron · 2003-03-06 07:39:45

Shaun, I went back and read that little "debate" between you and Josh about global warming and politics...interesting reading, heh heh...

Ever since I've been a small child, I've been a huge fan of weather, especially weather in the extreme. To this day, nothing makes my heart race more when I see the trees kneeling before high winds, or seeing lightning strike with earth-shaking force (have you ever seen a lightning bolt strike close, like really close...talk about a thrill of nature!)

Naturally, I have a strong interest in climate, and how it effects all of us here on Earth, and whether it's actually changing before our very eyes or not. I haven't bought into the whole "global warming" thing, although I do know things are heating up...the winters are shorter, the summers hotter and longer, but what is more apparent is the variability of the weather, and the possibility this is a part of global gyration of the climate which may or may not be taking place at the moment.

For example, in Jan of this year, a huge and prolonged cold wave hit us here in Florida. Snow was reported less than 100 miles north of where I live, and the temp came to within a hair's breath of freezing here...something that's happened before, but quite rare. Since Feb 18th, however, the tables have turned, and the mean temp has been 6 degrees F above normal, nearly double that this past week. I feel as if we have been suddenly transported to the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua (mosquitos and all..lol) with the low only reaching a very humid 75 F this morning...a full 15 degrees above our avg low for this time of the year! (Remember that Florida is surrounded on 3 sides by water, which is "supposed" to moderate our temps, both on the cold and hot side)

I'm sorry, but I can't help but to get excited over all this extreme variations in the weather, and it's only natural to assume something's happening with our climate...whether it be human-induced global warming, an increase in the sun's output, or a myriad of other factors such as the oceanic currents. It's also natural for people to take the "easy way" out and attribute all this crazy weather to a specific cause, which happens to be currently the "hot" topic of global warming...and I think the reason why all this has become so political is that it gives the average "Mr and Mrs Joe Blow" a sense of empowerment over something that we can't really control.

But I like to keep an open mind about things, and I will always make an effort to hear both sides of the story, as people are hardly ever right 100% of the time...and people are rarely wrong 100% of the time, either...the answer, if it can ever be found, most likely lies somewhere in the middle...or someplace that is totally unexpected...

B

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Re: Impending sudden climate change? - alarming report from Woods Hole

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