Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse - Game over.

Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse

A shutdown would have devastating global impacts and must not be allowed to happen, researchers say

www.theguardian.com

Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points.

The research found “an almost complete loss of stability over the last century” of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but the new analysis shows they may be nearing a shutdown.

Such an event would have catastrophic consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa; increasing storms and lowering temperatures in Europe; and pushing up the sea level in the eastern North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets.

The complexity of the AMOC system and uncertainty over levels of future global heating make it impossible to forecast the date of any collapse for now. It could be within a decade or two, or several centuries away. But the colossal impact it would have means it must never be allowed to happen, the scientists said.

“The signs of destabilisation being visible already is something that I wouldn’t have expected and that I find scary,” said Niklas Boers, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who did the research. “It’s something you just can’t [allow to] happen.”

It is not known what level of CO2 would trigger an AMOC collapse, he said. “So the only thing to do is keep emissions as low as possible. The likelihood of this extremely high-impact event happening increases with every gram of CO2 that we put into the atmosphere”.

Scientists are increasingly concerned about tipping points – large, fast and irreversible changes to the climate. Boers and his colleagues reported in May that a significant part of the Greenland ice sheet is on the brink, threatening a big rise in global sea level. Others have shown recently that the Amazon rainforest is now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs, and that the 2020 Siberian heatwave led to worrying releases of methane.
Aerial view of a burning area of Amazon rainforest reserve
Amazon rainforest now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs
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The world may already have crossed a series of tipping points, according to a 2019 analysis, resulting in “an existential threat to civilisation”. A major report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due on Monday, is expected to set out the worsening state of the climate crisis.

Boer’s research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, is titled “Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the AMOC”. Ice-core and other data from the last 100,000 years show the AMOC has two states: a fast, strong one, as seen over recent millennia, and a slow, weak one. The data shows rising temperatures can make the AMOC switch abruptly between states over one to five decades.

The AMOC is driven by dense, salty seawater sinking into the Arctic ocean, but the melting of freshwater from Greenland’s ice sheet is slowing the process down earlier than climate models suggested.

Boers used the analogy of a chair to explain how changes in ocean temperature and salinity can reveal the AMOC’s instability. Pushing a chair alters its position, but does not affect its stability if all four legs remain on the floor. Tilting the chair changes both its position and stability.

Eight independently measured datasets of temperature and salinity going back as far as 150 years enabled Boers to show that global heating is indeed increasing the instability of the currents, not just changing their flow pattern.

The analysis concluded: “This decline [of the AMOC in recent decades] may be associated with an almost complete loss of stability over the course of the last century, and the AMOC could be close to a critical transition to its weak circulation mode.”

Levke Caesar, at Maynooth University in Ireland, who was not involved in the research, said: “The study method cannot give us an exact timing of a possible collapse, but the analysis presents evidence that the AMOC has already lost stability, which I take as a warning that we might be closer to an AMOC tipping than we think.”

David Thornalley, at University College London in the UK, whose work showed the AMOC is at its weakest point in 1,600 years, said: “These signs of decreasing stability are concerning. But we still don’t know if a collapse will occur, or how close we might be to it.”

 

[Marissa Moira]

That's also not the coast of Baja California.

Look buddy only a certain type of person knows the habits of The Black Jewfish like it's common knowledge.

 

[TowinKarz]

Well THAT'S convenient...

Trust the science, trust the models, they can't give us any predictive info, but TRUST them! (and do whatever the politicians who trust them say, they're on the right side of history)

Watch, like every other climate alarmist propaganda this not come true whatsoever and for so called climate activists still be wholly against nuclear power

Because, the climate crisis threw off our numbers, duh! We were right about climate change because our wrong answer was actually right until it was invalidated by climate change! Can't you see?! OR DO YOU DENY THE SCIENCE!??!?!?!?!

 

[Sped Xing]

Look buddy only a certain type of person knows the habits of The Black Jewfish like it's common knowledge.

Are you calling me an icthyologist?

 

[Meat Target]

At least Harold Camping eventually had the humility to admit he was wrong after what, the third time the Rapture didn't happen?

I'm not even necessarily saying climate change isn't real or that it's not a problem. But these goalposts are motorized. How well did An Inconvenient Truth age for ya, Guardian.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Hey faggots, I have an idea, trees eat CO2 right? How's about we plant more fuckin' trees? I see a lot of bleating about mother Earth dying, I don't see solutions that don't include lowering your standard of living.

 

[Meat Target]

I don't see solutions that don't include lowering your standard of living.

Oh, they'll lower your standards of living, Marvin. Just not theirs, because the Really Smart Experts need and deserve luxury more than you.

 

[Flexo]

Trust the science, trust the models, they can't give us any predictive info, but TRUST them! (and do whatever the politicians who trust them say, they're on the right side of history)

What makes me laugh hardest is watching people like say... PSA Stitch & Adam’s podcast where they'll routinely mock religious folk, then mock anybody who denies climate change. (Even the latter has racked up as many failed predictions as those "Jesus returning on [date]" cults.)

How many more failures do you need before you start to question things even a little?

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Oh, they'll lower your standards of living, Marvin. Just not theirs, because the Really Smart Experts need and deserve luxury more than you.

Oh it's like Animal Farm, "We pigs are brain workers, therefore we require better food!"

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Hey faggots, I have an idea, trees eat CO2 right? How's about we plant more fuckin' trees? I see a lot of bleating about mother Earth dying, I don't see solutions that don't include lowering your standard of living.

I have a simple question, and we should be able to answer it by now if this is real science. What is, exactly, the ideal CO2 and temperature level for Earth? I mean, that's the goal, right?

 

[Meat Target]

Oh it's like Animal Farm, "We pigs are brain workers, therefore we require better food!"

That is precisely what I had in mind while typing that.

How many more failures do you need before you start to question things even a little?

And that is why the Cathedral is now trying to clamp down on all wrongthink. The Griftanic is taking on water because people are realizing how categorically full of shit they are, and they're trying to salvage their rule while they still can.

 

[Mepsi Pax]

Too much speculation not enough actual happenings, as usual. Yes the gulf stream has gotten more unstable. When will it collapse? No one actually knows (this is mentioned at the end of the article). What will happen after it collapses, and what might arise in it's place? No one knows... too many variables. The article is, like 80% of articles these days, just another YOU'RE GONNA DIE piece. It's not really worth reading. If you're worried about it, you should be learning the basics of farming and soil management, building up a self-sufficient farm somewhere rural, with access to plenty of nearby water. But no one's gonna do that. They just wanna bitch and go on consuming. It's plain that every scrap of value will be extracted from the earth, that's what happens when billions of humans end up competing to live as luxuriously as possible.

I also take issue with this statement from the article: “an existential threat to civilisation”.

That is hyperbole, it's misspelled (sorry britfags), and is typically narrow-minded. The correct appraisal would be "an existential threat to global/industrial civilization as it exists in the modern era". The wealthier you are, the more disconnected you are from the land, and/or the more crowded your shithole country is, the more this existential threat would affect you. Also places that already have extreme climates will be the most seriously affected. I don't have a private jet or a rape dungeon to worry about, I also don't have to worry about ever being in a high-density Asian/African hellhole. If this doomsday stuff comes to pass, my progeny will do what people did for all of human history.... struggle, living close to the land in small tribes, most likely above the 40th parallel or so. Big fucking deal. All things come to an end. Change is eternal.

 

[Sithis]

Papers like this with similarly alarming titles are the scientist equivalent of a hobo waving an empty tin cup on the sidewalk, it's just a ploy to get more funding so they can pretend to contribute something other than feeding carbon dioxide to plants

 

[Sped Xing]

Hey faggots, I have an idea, trees eat CO2 right? How's about we plant more fuckin' trees? I see a lot of bleating about mother Earth dying, I don't see solutions that don't include lowering your standard of living.

Grass is better at sequestering carbon than trees, since it has a much higher turnover, and more of its biomass, relatively, is underground.

More ranches.

 

[Karl Franz]

Grass is better at sequestering carbon than trees, since it has a much higher turnover, and more of its biomass, relatively, is underground.

More ranches.

Algae does absolute most of CO2 processing and does not care about your landlubbing faggotry. Emit more and it will be even happier. Climate fascists, fuck off.

 

[Sped Xing]

Algae does absolute most of CO2 processing and does not care about your landlubbing faggotry. Emit more and it will be even happier. Climate fascists, fuck off.

Hey kids? Got some iron? Throw it into the sea!

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Grass is better at sequestering carbon than trees, since it has a much higher turnover, and more of its biomass, relatively, is underground.

More ranches.

Grass is a water-hog, engineer that shit to take less water first & then we can start talking about going with grass instead.

 

[Troonos]

disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa

Am I supposed to feel bad for the shithole turd world? They've had thousands of years to become modern civilizations and failed. Let them die.

 

[Uranus Pink]

I have a simple question, and we should be able to answer it by now if this is real science. What is, exactly, the ideal CO2 and temperature level for Earth? I mean, that's the goal, right?

That is the question they won't answer until after everyone else who remembers the past and the historical records are dead and the records altered or destroyed. Temperatures and oxygen levels were a fukton higher when the dinosaurs were the dominant species on Earth. To the numerous ice ages that been occurring off and on buggering the dinos to iirc 10-15 thousand years with in the beginnings of human record history.

 

[KiwiFuzz]

I wish the climate collapse would stop tickling my balls and really get into it.

 

[Vlinny-kun]

It's plain that every scrap of value will be extracted from the earth, that's what happens when billions of chinamen end up competing to live as luxuriously as possible, because CHINA NUMBAH WON!

FTFY.

We could use a good ice age, honestly. Extreme cold seems to be pretty good at culling useless retards from society.