If you thought Hurricane Katrina was bad, just wait.....
- From: alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Alan)
- Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 18:06 +0000 (GMT Standard Time)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/1/14937/6587
by Drezden
Wed Nov 30, 2005 at 11:49:37 PM PDT
Since I've seen this popping up over the last few days in various forms I
thought I would bring the discussion over to dKos for a few rounds. (Although
I'm sure this will disappear just as fast as every other environmental post).
New articles reported in Nature, New Scientist, and others are now showing that
the Gulf Stream (the current of water which flows from the tropics to the artic
in a continuous loop) is starting to weaken and slow, especially on the European
side.
* Drezden's diary :: ::
*
Many beleive that this is due to the large amount of fresh water now being
released by melting glaciers in Greenland and other areas in the arctic. The
input of fresh water is throwing off the normally high salinity levels which
cause the cold waters to sink and flow towards the south.
What isn't changing, however, is that warm water in the tropics is still
flowing. But instead of going north to warm Europe and eventually sink to the
deep for its return trip home, the warm water is now becoming stuck in a
continuous loop that goes from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of Africa and
back. This is why we are now seeing the increased surface temperatures that
fueled the Hurricane activity this season and brought us insanely strong storms.
Worse yet is that data shows that with each passing survey the intensity of this
trapped warm current is growing and gaining strength. We may very well be on an
irreversible course that will unleash increasingly brutal storms on the Gulf
region for decades to come.
England is also going to continue becoming warmer in the short term while the
water that does reach the area is fed by the backlog of warm tropical waters
with nowhere else to go. The UK Climate Impact Program has already found that
the average temperature rose by almost 1°C during the twentieth century and
recent years have been among the warmest on record. However, if the glaciers
continue to melt to the point where the salinity levels won't allow water to
sink, the flows that now bring this record heat to the island will come to a
screaching halt.
The future might not be that great for either of us.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/1/14937/6587
Hey never mind Drezden, if you can live with the hurricanes then I can live with
the snow.
Alan
http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk/enigma.html
http://veloceraptor.blogspot.com/
.
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