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

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41–50 of 93 posts

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

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Related deal alert: Is $1.99 on Kindle today.

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

#42

False vacuum collapse could also happen. But given the quite impressive track record of 100% failed predictions in the climate doom department I'm betting on the false vacuum imploding before the climate memes manifest.

We've already seen sea level rises make some islands unliveable, pretty large ecological damage, and many people dead from natural disasters from climate change and we are still in early stages of it (levels of greenhouse gases in the environment are still still not only rising but also accelerating in the wrong direction). You would need to be incredibly selective to the point of absurdity to say predictions have 100% failed.

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

#43
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And presumably there's another side of it too? Like all that hot air would have to be somewhere else if not Western Europe. That somewhere else would also have a bad time, just in the opposite direction. Very bleak.

Crazy in my mind to think about the system moving unimaginable amounts of energy around the planet and now we're changing it on a time scale shorter than what the planet usually sees. Reminds me of what I read about the Younger Dryas and how temperatures changed within centuries, if not decades.

>> Crazy in my mind to think about the system moving unimaginable amounts of energy around the planet and now we're changing it on a time scale shorter than what the planet usually sees.

The inter-glacial periods are 10K to 20K years. We are currently around 12000 years into it. "AI overview" keeps telling me human induced climate change may lengthen it, but the collapse of the AMOC might just end it.

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

#44
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…

Ok, but this happens pretty regularly on a planetary scale (at least every 110,000 years or so) - why hasn´t it been so disastrous before - say at the end of the last interglacial?

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

#45
post #38
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard some speculation that rapid climate change at that time could be the origin of global flood myths in so many cultures. Imagine you're just minding your own business and a glacial dam breaks. As far as you're concerned, you just experienced a global flood.

Melting so much ice in such a short time without some kind of a dam made of not-ice is physically unimaginable. Water has soooo much heat capacity it'd take hundreds of years unless we're talking about a yellowstone or deccan traps eruption under the south pole or something (haven't done the math, but I'm not sure if it'd be enough).

Something like this already happened relatively recently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_floods?wprov=sfti1

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

#46
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…

Should have used AMOC indeed, in Dutch media the word "golfstroom" was used, and I translated it without putting too much thought into it.

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

#47
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...

Most research on the effects of this have shown that it will make weather more variable. So imagine 45-50C heat waves and -10-20C polar blasts.

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

#48
post #24

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 C…

It's also worth noting that while this is uncertain, it's likely an undercount.

Our models are based on what we can measure. We're continually finding that we are under measuring.

Chances are that children born today will feel the effects of AMOC collapsing.

So this mentality of "omg they're over reacting, we have time" is really dumb.

It's very easy to nitpick and dismiss this kind of stuff instead of giving a shit because giving a shit means we have to accept we screwed up. Can we finally start giving a shit and be cautious?

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

#49
post #32
post #24

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 C…

Agree, that said, it's still a little worrisome. These simulations are the best we have to predict the future, and even if it's 2076, once it happens, it's going to be a huge deal. Hard to think we should just YOLO and take a gamble models were wrong and all will be fine for centuries more.

[deleted]

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

#50
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…

The Mediterranean is currently experiencing water temps so high it's killing off everything. It's so hot that it's not enjoyable to swim in.
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