As the Gulf Stream stops, another ocean current may save Europe's climate

[axj]

_http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8480340/Indian-Ocean-current-could-save-British-climate.html

Indian Ocean current 'could save British climate'

An ocean current on the other side of the world could save Britain from a freezing climate like that seen in the film The Day After Tomorrow, say scientists.

By Stephen Adams 5:30PM BST 28 Apr 2011

Many climatologists believe global warming will stop the Gulf Stream, which keeps Britain much warmer than other countries on a similar latitude, and plunge it into an Alaskan-type climate.

The theory is that global warming will increase the rate of fresh water ice melting in the Arctic Ocean, which will make parts of the North Atlantic less saline and stop the deep water current that helps drive the Gulf Stream.

Four years ago the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) even said global warming was “very likely” to slow the current.

The theory was dramatised - with limited success - in the 2004 disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, which sees a massive snowstorm engulfing New York.

But now oceanographers have found that the Agulhas current, which runs down the east coast of Africa, is spilling increasing quantities of warm, salty water into the South Atlantic.

Huge eddies of warm water are spinning out westwards, past the Cape of Good Hope, where they get swept northwards by the cold Benguela current. Eventually the 'Indian Ocean' water ends up in the North Atlantic - where scientists say it could "stabilize" the effect of melting ice.

Lisa Beal, of the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, explained that most of the water in the Agulhas current never made it into the Atlantic.

But climate change had strengthened the current, leading to bigger and more frequent swirls off the tip of Africa and more "Agulhas leakage" into the Atlantic.

Every decade, the flow from the Agulhas system into the Atlantic could be increasing by 1.4 million to 4 million cubic meters of water per second, she and colleagues wrote in the journal Nature.

She said: "This could mean that current IPCC model predictions for the next century are wrong, and there will be no cooling in the North Atlantic to partially offset the effects of global climate change over North America and Europe.

"Instead, increasing Agulhas leakage could stabilize the oceanic heat transport carried by the Atlantic overturning circulation."

Eric Itsweire, director of the US's National Science Foundation physical oceanography program, which funded the research, added: "Under a warming climate the Agulhas Current system near the tip of South Africa could bring more warm salty water from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean and counteract opposing effects from the Arctic Ocean."

The historical record also indicates there have been dramatic peaks in "Agulhas leakage" over the last 500,000 years, according to the report.

 

[HiThere]

Thank you for posting, I for one hope the climate of the northern hemispheres will evolve as depicted in this article.

 

[Laura]

Kind of an admission that the Gulf Stream is stopping.

 

[Windmill knight]

Sounds like wishful thinking to me.

I also find it so annoying that the collapse of the Gulf Stream is attributed to global warming, and no mention of the oil spill at all.

 

[Regulattor]

Sounds like wishful thinking to me.

I second that!

And recent Joe Bastardi's weather comments certainly suggesting that something is happening with our atmosphere.

[quote author= Joe Bastardi]
http://www.weatherbell.com/jb/?m=20110515
The big fall in global temps has huge summer forecast implications as well as climate implications. Those that want to separate the 2 simply wish to do so to discredit those of us that know ONE MUST KNOW AND UNDERSTAND THE PAST AND ITS MEANING to even have a chance to forecast the future. The reliance on global models is simply an admission that you really dont understand what is going on and you have to lean on the models. Sorry, its that simple.

In any case there was a lot of yelling and screaming last year about how warm it would be. I was in the crowd yelling as loud as anyone BUT THE YEAR BEFOE WHEN THE EL NINO WAS COMING ON ( 2009) Last year as the nino was coming on, I went out of my way starting in February to make sure people would understand the collapse of the global temps that was on the way for this year. Interestingly enough the yell loud when its warm crowd said nothing, but instead now that the temp has fallen, is claiming the wild weather which has been occurring during the fall was because of warming. However the cooling has BEEN SO DRAMATIC, that its obvious that if you are going to blame something, you blame the cooling.

Now I have stated this time and time again. But now you are going to see why this is important going forward. The major cooling not only in the low levels ( here is the 2 meter temps… now in mid pack of the past 10 years and way way under last year which sticks out like a soar thumb.. WE ARE .7C COOLER THAN LAST YEAR NOW!!!) at 14 thousand feet we are about .44C cooler and near the average, having been at or below the average much of the year.
At 400 mb, 25,000 feet we are near record cold levels since 1998.
This has major implications. First of all, it means that as a whole, the atmosphere is MORE UNSTABLE since it has cooled so much in those mid and upper layers. ... [/quote]

 

[Seamus]

I also find it so annoying that the collapse of the Gulf Stream is attributed to global warming, and no mention of the oil spill at all.

Its hardly surprising... The idea that an oil spill could interfere with an ocean current, or even atmospheric currents, is so far outside of conventional thinking that it doesn't even occur to most people. I don't think I would have ever thought about it if I didn't follow SOTT and the conversations here on the forum.