Ice Age, Gulf stream, Oil Spill

[AB Editor]

I received this as a contact email. I though you might be interested to answer some of the odd questions in it - or explain it to me at least!
It is said that the Younger Dryas ice age 11,000 years ago may have been caused by the Gulfstream stopping due to a flood of fresh water entering the North Atlantic either from the Arctic or Lake Aggasis.

Is there any truth to the rumor that the Gulfstream has stopped once again now, due to the effects of the BP oil spill and Corexit?

On the Internet, people are pointing to the shift of the jetstream which is said to have caused the drought in Russia last summer and the floods in Pakistan. Heat from the Gulfstream rises 7 km into the atmosphere and impacts the path followed by the jetstream.

Then there is the present winter in Europe that began 6 weeks early and is the coldest since record-keeping began.

If the European winter ends 6 weeks late, the shortened growing season will unfavorably impact already tight global food supplies.

Oil mixed with Corexit dispurses throughout the water, and is said to impact the boundary layer that allows currents to flow. Instead, the warm and cold water intermingle. The result is warmer water in the Gulf of Mexico and a Gulfstream that dissipates before it gets to Europe. This effect is apparently easily replicated in a lab. Just use coloring in the warm water and watch what happens to the boundary layer when oil and Corexit are added.

The presence of oil and Corexit in the Atlantic ocean will probably be temporary, but so was the flood of fresh water that began the Younger Dryas ice age. Perhaps this would be a good time for northerners to purchase a condo in a warm climate?

[rss16vt]

You seem to have to have a good handle on this topic, I am a builder trying to construct our family home in a tiny village located dead centre of the uk and 1450 ft above sea level. I have worked out side almost continuously for the last 3 years, and as we are unaffected here by city air pollution, have felt the un-blunted force of the weather. We've had heat stroke in the spring (when the sun seems most fierce) with 30c, hail in the summer, monsoon rain in the autumn and snow (up to 4ft on the level not drifts) /sub zero temperatures (now regularly in the -teens) lasting months. All the while we are on site in a caravan.So you can understand why I've developed and interest in our weather.
I've always struggled with the notion of a co2 driven climate, mainly because it seems too handy for crooked governments to hit you around the head with while empting your pockets!
But I can understand past treads of a Planet with-in a huge cosmic clock where many variations in its surface character are expected.
I'm not however getting why one seemingly obvious factor in the Earth's climate character is not being discussed, Water.
If this Planet is to become warmer, which it indeed seems to be trying to do (in my view as a result of its relationship with the sun) more water vapour will be force into the atmosphere where it will dissipate to the the poles where it will have a cooling effect.
I would regard the water on this Planet as a shield which has historically saved the Earth from the fierceness of the sun during the procession of the galaxy. This simple view of our universe is not easy to tax, so I'll expect this post (my first ever!) to be rubbished.
Anyway it would seem that all agree change is a foot.
And I would not feel compelled to write this unless I was deeply worried that the 'the powers that be' may be missing (or worse denying) "unfortunate truth" here.
Michael Carr

[jake-the-peg]

Water vapour is already included in all the climate models.

Far from having a cooling effect water vapour in th atmosphere is a greenhouse gas itself.

Warmer weather -> more H20 in the atmosphere -> more atmospheric warming.

But there is a limit as obviously the atmosphere can only support so much water vapour whereas CO2 and Methane are gasses at the relevant temperatures and pressures.

Back to Ed's point

I very much doubt that the BP oil spill will have much effect on the Gulf stream - it's in fairly rude health.

From the last time I remember looking into it even the most pessemistic models of climate change gave us a good 100 years or so before it was significantly affected.

Thing is it's an image that rather catches the public imagination so you get all this stuff in the popular press on it and films like "the day after tomorrow".

Then when someone points out that its not actually the most pressing risk all the climate skeptics stand up and shout "I told you so"

Classic "straw man" argument

[rss16vt]

Hi, are these the same models that told us that our kids would have to travel to the Alps to see snow. I feel all ocean currents/weather pattens will diminish.
I do agree that the atmosphere can only hold so much h2o (or it would never rain!) but to my mind, in a world with a hotter Sun your main precipitation would start around an Equatorial band then with its increased energy travel quickly toward to cooler poles there clouds would become very dense very quick, snow fall would help redress surface temperatures and compound winters arise.
I believe this is called an "ice age".
I also believe in pre-history there has been something known as the hockey stick effect. Where there is a steady climb in Global temperatures is followed by....yes an Ice age.
So CO2 OR WATER????????

[jake-the-peg]

I don't know what you're talking about - you seem to be mixing up loads of different things.

The hardest thing at the moment is to predict exactly what the local effects of climate change will be. I don't know anybody who's ever predicted we'd not get snow ever again.

The change is global - as it happens at the moment the UK looks like it will be amoungst the least affected nations in the short term - If you're expecting Wiltshire to look like the sahara in your lifetime you've got the wrong idea.

In your mind water vapour might work like that but I have the feeling you're not exactly an expert in the matter. Especially when you suggest that a hotter sun will trigger an ice age.

As I say water vapour is a greenhouse gas.

The "hockey stick" graph is something quite different - it's a graph of historical temperatures bumping along for the last thousand years or so that then shoots up in the shape of a hockey stick as the industrial revolution kicks in.

Over the years it has been much attacked by skeptics because it has a strong implication that man is responsible for a sudden increase in global temperatures.

http://en.wikipedia.o...key_stick_controversy

Historically there have been ice ages and the Earths temperature has varied.

But this one is different. If you put in all the data to the models you can correctly predict these past temperature variations. You can't do that with this last one.

The numbers only work if you include Man's effect.

That's what gets all the skeptics - you can't show that it's right or wrong with some fact pulled out of the air like a rabbit out of a hat.

You have to do the numbers.

Very few skeptics do the numbers - tho

[jake-the-peg]

ctd

Very few skeptics do the numbers - those that do mostly now acknowledge that the climate is warming.

People Like Richard Lindzen who would only take a bet on the climate cooling if given 50:1 odds!

And he's a skeptic!

I suggest you have a bit of a read about some of the stuff behind these things
( preferably not from the news papers )

If you want a skeptical viewpoint Lindzen is one of the more intelligent skeptics - and has most standing as an actual scientist who knows what he's talking about although I should point out his reseach has been funded by oil companies

[rss16vt]

I was looking at oscillation of the Planets climate over the millions and not thousands of year's.

[rss16vt]

"As I say water vapour is a greenhouse gas"

Our heat source is external and for Cloud to act as insulation the Sun's energy must make it to the surface in the first place. I feel there's a science once well practised being dismissed here, It was called common sense!

[beso]

The problem is not about common sense but presumptive ignorance.

You disagree with the science despite having no knowledge or qualification in the subject and simply assume that the facts match how you would like them to be.

[rss16vt]

"Cassandra King
03/01/2011 at 5:59 am
The UK met office is a wholly owned political tool of the UK political establishment, if this establishment needed the public to believe that the climate was being changed by demons and fairies then the met office would be claiming just that. CAGW and the CO2 theory is nothing more than a political vehicle designed to achieve a political end.

The political class came up with the idea of a common enemy of nations that would enable the international political class to unite to fight this fantasy enemy, all very laudable so far but the concept was built on lies and the lies became ever more tangled. To control carbon is to control the energy matrix, a world governance built on global control of the economy while building a central global political state.

High aims built on low morals, a new ideal based on lies and deceptions fully using the old ‘the ends justify the means’ platform. Lies and deceptions and fraud to build a new Jerusalem and the essential need to perpetuate the lies and deceptions means that the entire edifice is built on quicksand. The political class have not learned the simple lessons of history, the ends can never justify the means, lies can never be the basis of a noble enterprise.

The political class needed CAGW whether it was real or imagined did not matter, the CAGW fraud is a political tool to further a political cause and the political class are the driving force behind the corruption of institutions and science, this highlights perfectly how the political class operates. We know that an ideal built on lies is doomed from the start, only when the political class realise this will sanity reassert itself."
This written by a smart Lady with a real grasp and reality!!!!!!