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Tipping point in Gulf Stream may be reached as early as mid-century

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Re: Tipping point in Gulf Stream may be reached as early as mid-century

#21

Post by s_dev »

myth_drannon wrote: post #10
octaane wrote: post #6

I cannot overemphasize how epochal of a crisis this would be for human civilization - the gulf stream is pretty much the only thing keeping northern europe (The UK, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, parts of germany, the Netherlands, etc) habitable by current standards. Basically, the gulf stream is a conveyor belt that grabs nice warm water from southern latitudes (carribean, southeast atlantic oce…

Europe suffers from unprecedented heat waves, record after record. Wouldn't it be beneficial for temperatures to drop 10C? I remember the winters in Eastern Europe in the 80's unbearably cold (to a child), now barely any snow and endless forest fires in summer...

It doesn't work that way. It would result in hotter summers and colder winters. So it wouldn't alleviate the heat waves but exacerbate them.

Large bodies of water like the Atlantic or the Med keep us cool in summer and warm in winter. Climate change in general leads to more extreme weather events and weather just simply being a lot more volatile.

Re: Tipping point in Gulf Stream may be reached as early as mid-century

#22

Post by roadside_picnic »

octaane wrote: post #6

I cannot overemphasize how epochal of a crisis this would be for human civilization - the gulf stream is pretty much the only thing keeping northern europe (The UK, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, parts of germany, the Netherlands, etc) habitable by current standards. Basically, the gulf stream is a conveyor belt that grabs nice warm water from southern latitudes (carribean, southeast atlantic oce…

The AMOC collapsing (I have no idea why the title says 'Gulf Stream' as that is different and not mentioned in the post), has far more disastrous implications than destroying the climate of Europe.

It's the beginning of the process of ocean de-oxygenation, ultimately creating a lifeless ocean that emits hydrogen sulfide instead of oxygen. It would completely disrupt the planetary food change, make the ocean poisonous, and fundamentally alter life on this planet in unimaginable ways.

For a more detailed look at the issue I highly recommend Peter Ward's "Under a Green Sky".

Re: Tipping point in Gulf Stream may be reached as early as mid-century

#23

Post by bix6 »

And this will of course affect ENSO giving us more El Niño action. So flooding here in California and more winter rain so all the skiers will have to water ski down the mountain. And the water gets warmer so if you thought the urchins were a problem now well just wait!

Re: Tipping point in Gulf Stream may be reached as early as mid-century

#24

Post by timr »

Title is clickbait. This is based on 25+ different models, the AMOC is not the Gulf Stream, the authors admit there’s a great deal of uncertainty, and the confidence intervals extend from 2023 to 2076 for the high emission scenario. Moreover, per the authors:

> If the AMOC starts to collapse, it takes more than 100 years to reach a substantially weaker state.

Better title would be “Simulations of Atlantic Meridonal Circulation Collapse Due to Climate Change”

Re: Tipping point in Gulf Stream may be reached as early as mid-century

#26

Post by barbazoo »

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #13

Okay that's maybe dramatic, but on another hand, that would be quite fascinating to experience. Maybe, for those of us living long enough, we are going to witness a net migration not from Africa to Europe, but from Europe to elsewhere, anywhere. There is enough place on Earth for humans to resettle and it's likely that other places will become more hospitable, while other places will become less, as the climate shift…

> There is enough place on Earth for humans to resettle

It's romantic to imagine populations slowly moving to where life is better, haven't we always done that since out of Africa. I doubt it'll be like that when land becomes uninhabitable within decades due to changes to the experienced temperature range, rainfall, drought, fires, etc. We can't even figure out how to make space for a couple million Palestinian people. The Russians are still expanding their empire to restore their glory days. We need to figure out the whole living next to each other thing before we can resettle large populations.

Re: Tipping point in Gulf Stream may be reached as early as mid-century

#27

Post by salynchnew »

hatthew wrote: post #19
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the cooling from lack of gulf stream air will perfectly counter-act the increase in heat of global warming and result in net zero effect?

The gulf stream doesn't create heat, it just moves it. If it doesn't move as much heat, then the destination will get colder and presumably the source will get warmer.

Okay. Let's say the low lows of a middle Sweden equivalent climate are brought more in line with current UK temp ranges. Let's say the winter temp goes up +10 degrees Celsius.

What happens then to, say, the Mediterranean at +10 C average temps? Seems quite bad, eh?

Re: Tipping point in Gulf Stream may be reached as early as mid-century

#28

Post by barbazoo »

marcyb5st wrote: post #16
V__ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rome is further north than New York City. Very screwed.

I believe southern European countries won't be as screwed. The Mediterranean sea has enough thermal mass to keep things Ok. North of the Alps screwed big time. However, the lack of rainfall could be the real killer. As the warm humid air would stops coming it's not clear if the precipitations would be enough to sustain crops in Mediterranean countries. Also, the US east cost and the Caribbean countries would be fucke…

I recommend "The Light Pirate" by Lily Brooks-Dalton that deals with this sort of future.

Re: Tipping point in Gulf Stream may be reached as early as mid-century

#29

Post by deadbabe »

marcyb5st wrote: post #16
V__ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rome is further north than New York City. Very screwed.

I believe southern European countries won't be as screwed. The Mediterranean sea has enough thermal mass to keep things Ok. North of the Alps screwed big time. However, the lack of rainfall could be the real killer. As the warm humid air would stops coming it's not clear if the precipitations would be enough to sustain crops in Mediterranean countries. Also, the US east cost and the Caribbean countries would be fucke…

Aren’t most crops watered via irrigation? Why is precipitation necessary

Re: Tipping point in Gulf Stream may be reached as early as mid-century

#30

Post by Insanity »

roadside_picnic wrote: post #22
octaane wrote: post #6

I cannot overemphasize how epochal of a crisis this would be for human civilization - the gulf stream is pretty much the only thing keeping northern europe (The UK, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, parts of germany, the Netherlands, etc) habitable by current standards. Basically, the gulf stream is a conveyor belt that grabs nice warm water from southern latitudes (carribean, southeast atlantic oce…

The AMOC collapsing (I have no idea why the title says 'Gulf Stream' as that is different and not mentioned in the post), has far more disastrous implications than destroying the climate of Europe. It's the beginning of the process of ocean de-oxygenation, ultimately creating a lifeless ocean that emits hydrogen sulfide instead of oxygen. It would completely disrupt the planetary food change, make the ocean poisonous…

Just added it to my backlog of books. That does look like an interesting read, thank you.
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