Out: you driving a fossil fueled vehicle is causing the ocean circulation to shut down. In:
Climate change may be speeding up ocean circulation
Winds are picking up worldwide, and that is making the surface waters of the oceans swirl a bit faster, researchers report. A new analysis of the ocean’s kinetic energy, measured by thousands of floats around the world, suggests that surface ocean circulation been accelerating since the early 1990s.
Some of that sped-up circulation may be due to naturally recurring ocean-atmosphere patterns, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, researchers report February 5 in Science Advances. But the acceleration is greater than can be attributed to natural variability alone — suggesting that global warming may also be playing a role, says a team led by oceanographer Shijian Hu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Qingdao.
The connected system of massive currents that swirl between the world’s oceans, sometimes called the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt, redistributes heat and nutrients around the globe and has a powerful effect on climate. Winds dominate mixing in the surface ocean: Prevailing winds in the tropics, for example, can push water masses aside, allowing deeper, nutrient-rich waters to surge upward.
How climate change might affect this Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, has garnered headlines, as some simulations have predicted that global warming would lead to a slowdown in which could eventually bring a deep chill to Europe. In 2018, paleoceanographer David Thornalley of University College London and colleagues reported evidence that the AMOC has weakened over the last 150 years, although the question remains uncertain (SN: 1/31/19).
But the new study focuses on “the amount of swirling around of upper ocean waters due to wind,†rather than the speed of that overturning circulation, says Thornalley, who was not involved in the work.
Of course, the study just suggests. In other words, they really do not know, and also offer natural reasons why this might possibly be happening. Because, really, it either is or isn’t. “Suggesting” is not actually scientific in this area. If they do not have the data and facts, don’t say it. It’s acceptable for telescope readings to suggest that an exo-planet has an atmosphere. Not for say that Earth’s surface waters are increasing. That’s just scaremongering.
Global warming has long been predicted to slow global wind speeds, called “global stilling.†That’s because the poles are warming faster than the equatorial region, and a smaller temperature gradient between the two zones might be expected to result in weaker winds (SN: 3/16/18). But recent studies, such as a report published November 2019 in Nature Climate Change, suggest that wind speeds around the world have actually been speeding up, at least since about 2010.
In other words, their science has no actual basis in fact, they’re just throwing sh*t against the wall to see if it sticks.
Simulations of increasing greenhouse gas emissions over the last two decades, the team found, produce a similar uptick in winds, suggesting that climate change may be speeding up the winds too.
Well, of course it did. Shocking!
Both large scale ocean currents and large scale wind currents are driven by the temperature difference between the poles and the equator. Global warming (by any cause) diminishes that difference, so the currents should weaken.
Tornadoes and hurricanes should also diminish. And we are experiencing fewer and weaker hurricanes nowadays. Just ask New Englanders about the 1938 hurricane or Floridians about the 1935 one.
Actually, Earth’s major oceanic and atmospheric circulating currents are driven by the planet’s rotation (strictly speaking, the PDO, AMO, ENSO, etc, are not circulating currents). The physics of fluid behavior on or near the surface of a rotating sphere is pretty well established.
Surface winds and currents are affected by temperature differences — spend a day at the coast and you’ll see it.
Also, it’s interesting that the study team notes that while warming should result in slower winds, they fail to reach the obvious conclusion that global COOLING would explain their results.
Yes. They actually pulled a post hoc ergo propter what the fffff?