In the movie, “The Day After Tomorrow”, warm water from the Gulf Stream get’s shut off in a perverse impact of global warming, leading to worldwide catastrophe.
No in is predicting that – at all. But, there is this weird thing in the North Atlantic right now…
(you’ll have to fullscreen it to see the action)
Below, the 2004 movie “The Day After Tomorrow” took a North Atlantic shutdown as a trigger for global disaster. In this clip, they get a lot wrong, including the backwards circulation of the ocean currents – and science does not consider this scenario very probable any time soon. Still, a mystery unfolding. A well known oceanographer writes me, “The current big blue blob has been there since mid-2013 if you look at the monthly GISS anomalies, but it is a much longer-term feature also shown in the AR4 and AR5 global temperature trend maps.”
I’m told there is some probably-not-quite-so-dramatic science in the publication pipeline on this.
Is that cold blob not just showing a temperature anomaly, i.e. an area of surface cooler than the surrounding, and not a big ‘lump’ of cold water as such.
Could be connected to increasing Greenland ice melt with colder fresh water being less dense that the ocean sub-surface waters.
OTOH I could be barking up the wrong creek without a paddle.
“….and science does not consider this scenario very probable any time soon….”
Yeah, just like “science” thought the Arctic would not be ice-free in summer any time soon but now seems to headed for that within 10 years.
There has been a lot of discussion of the thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic over the years, and it’s another one of the “known unknowns” that may bite us in the backside (along with stuff like methane burps, massive Greenland ice sheet melt and resulting freshwater release to the North Atlantic, and a huge El Nino in 2015). Just something else to think about when trying to fall asleep.
I read a great cli-fi novel some years back (name escapes me) in which the NA TH circulation was disrupted by a massive infusion of fresh meltwater and they converted a fleet of 50 or 60 supertankers to be “salt spreaders” and cruise the ocean making the water more dense so that it would sink and restart the TH circulation. And in much the same area as the “mysterious blue blob”. Hmmmmmm.
That book was one of Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy–I think probably the last one, “Sixty Days and Counting” (the others are “Forty Signs of Rain” and “Fifty Degrees Below”).
Two takeaways from the series: 1) Nothing happens in DC until the temperature drops to -50 F one winter due to ocean current changes (this convinces Congress that something actually has to be done), and 2) we end up doing geoengineering, not because it isn’t dangerous, but because we have nothing to lose (that is, prospects without it are so dire).
I’d like to believe he is wrong (but I don’t). Anyway, interestingly, in real life he remains an optimist on humanity’s future.
“I read a great cli-fi novel some years back (name escapes me)”
That would not have been back in the early 1970s would it, I recall reading one back then.
“The Day After Tomorrow” was based on a novel called “The Coming Global Superstorm”, by Art Bell of conspiracy midnight radio fame, and Whitley “I was abducted by Aliens” Strieber.
To a-a-lionel and g-man:
The book was more late 90’s through mid 00’s, and The Coming Global Superstorm was non-fiction, not a novel. I do recall reading TCGSS, and maybe the “salt the oceans” scenario was outlined there?—-I do remember that the costs of converting the tankers, mining the salt, and manning the “salt shaker” operation were discussed, which isn’t very novel-like, so maybe it was there I saw it rather than in some novel. CRS is overtaking me and I read so many books I lose track. I DO remember thinking that it the thermohaline circulation shut down because of rapid fresh water influx, that was one piece of geo-engineering that did seem remotely affordable and doable.
Talking of Ice, well I am and maybe OT but I have just been watching James Balog’s ‘Chasing Ice’ on DVD again. I cannot recommend this enough. Jason Box appears as does Terry Root widow of the late, great and much missed Stephen Schneider who did so much to get the message across.
James has another project for the other pole, info’ here.
I’ll second that—-Chasing Ice is great stuff.
I get a notice that says Fox has blocked this on copyrite grounds
not seeing it here, but could be happening somewhere.
Blocked here in Australia.
Blocked here in Taiwan too.
As for the “cold spot” in the North Atlantic, I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure there are some over at WTFUWT who will claim its proof positive that global warming is a hoax.
They can try,but I found this in ‘Oceanography: An Invitation to Marine Science’ Tom Garrison Sixth Edition, 2007 [1], at Figure 6.16 page 166:
“Over the past 40 years the tropical ocean shallower than 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) has become warmer and saltier, while water at the far north and south has become fresher. The world’s heat driven cycle of evaporation and precipitation seems to have become between 5% and 10% faster during that time, increasing both the rate of water evaporated in the tropics and the amount precipitated in the higher latitude regions in both hemispheres. (Source: Curry et. al., Nature 426 (2003):8-16)”
The paper I think must be this one:
Curry, R., R. R. Dickson, and I. Yashayaev (2003), A change in the freshwater balance of the {Atlantic Ocean over the past four decades, Nature, 426 (6968), 826–829, 10.1038/nature02206.
But I have failed to find access, a number of citations turned up.
[1] Purchased in UK and with a broad read stripe across one corner bearing the legend ‘Not for Sale in the United States’. Why do publishers do this?
“but I’m sure there are some over at WTFUWT who will claim its proof positive that global warming is a hoax.”
They can try,but I found this in ‘Oceanography: An Invitation to Marine Science’ Tom Garrison Sixth Edition, 2007 [1], at Figure 6.16 page 166:
“Over the past 40 years the tropical ocean shallower than 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) has become warmer and saltier, while water at the far north and south has become fresher. The world’s heat driven cycle of evaporation and precipitation seems to have become between 5% and 10% faster during that time, increasing both the rate of water evaporated in the tropics and the amount precipitated in the higher latitude regions in both hemispheres. (Source: Curry et. al., Nature 426 (2003):8-16)”
The paper I think must be this one:
Curry, R., R. R. Dickson, and I. Yashayaev (2003), A change in the freshwater balance of the {Atlantic Ocean over the past four decades, Nature, 426 (6968), 826–829, 10.1038/nature02206.
But I have failed to find access, a number of citations turned up.
But I have failed to find access, a number of citations turned up.
[1] Purchased in UK and with a broad read stripe across one corner bearing the legend ‘Not for Sale in the United States’. Why do publishers do this?
read this http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wxfacts/North-Atlantic-Drift-Gulf-Stream.htm
My posts now seem to be blocked. I had some relevant information to add.
Well that one got through so I’ll try again with the one that ‘vanished’ into cyberspace.
Cy wrote:
“I’m sure there are some over at WTFUWT who will claim its proof positive that global warming is a hoax.”
They can try,but I found this in ‘Oceanography: An Invitation to Marine Science’ Tom Garrison Sixth Edition, 2007 [1], at Figure 6.16 page 166:
“Over the past 40 years the tropical ocean shallower than 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) has become warmer and saltier, while water at the far north and south has become fresher. The world’s heat driven cycle of evaporation and precipitation seems to have become between 5% and 10% faster during that time, increasing both the rate of water evaporated in the tropics and the amount precipitated in the higher latitude regions in both hemispheres. (Source: Curry et. al., Nature 426 (2003):8-16)”
The paper I think must be this one:
Curry, R., R. R. Dickson, and I. Yashayaev (2003), A change in the freshwater balance of the {Atlantic Ocean over the past four decades, Nature, 426 (6968), 826–829, 10.1038/nature02206.
But I have failed to find access, a number of citations turned up.
[1] Purchased in UK and with a broad read stripe across one corner bearing the legend ‘Not for Sale in the United States’. Why do publishers do this?
Well that one got through, I tried again with my original information and it vanished again, it must have become spam trapped for some reason.
if a comment does not show up, assume wordpress weirdness. Some may find it unbelievable, but I do not continually police comment threads here. Other things to do.
Thanks Peter.
In response to Cy Halothrin, a different version:
“Over the past 40 years the tropical ocean shallower than 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) has become warmer and saltier, while water at the far north and south has become fresher. The world’s heat driven cycle of evaporation and precipitation seems to have become between 5% and 10% faster during that time, increasing both the rate of water evaporated in the tropics and the amount precipitated in the higher latitude regions in both hemispheres. (Source: Curry et. al., Nature 426 (2003):8-16)”
From ‘Oceanography: An Invitation to Marine Science’ Tom Garrison Sixth Edition, 2007 [1], at Figure 6.16 page 166
You ought to watch Toad Licker. He’s worse than Dave Burton.