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@rittmeister ,
@Wehrkraftzersetzer ,
@Daring Drea ,
@alexjack ... It is going to be getting colder in Europe because the Ocean's conveyor belt is slowing. In the past that meant it got much colder for Europe but this time Climate change is the wild care...
A slowdown in the Atlantic Ocean current bringing warm water up to Europe from the tropics could trigger “a period of rapid global surface warming”, a new study suggests.
www.carbonbrief.org
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This conveyor plays a crucial role in western Europe’s climate as the incoming warm water releases heat into the atmosphere. Without it, for example, UK winters would be around 5C colder.
Recent research has suggested that the AMOC has weakened by around 15% since the middle of the 20th century. This could lead to considerable changes in climate and rainfall patterns throughout the northern hemisphere.
Palaeo climate studies of Earth’s distant past link weakening – or even complete shutdowns – of the AMOC to abrupt periods of cold in the northern hemisphere. This suggests that a weakening AMOC in modern times could see northern hemisphere temperatures fall.
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OCEANS
Slowdown of Atlantic conveyor belt could trigger ‘two decades’ of rapid global warming
A slowdown in the Atlantic Ocean current bringing warm water up to Europe from the tropics could trigger “a period of rapid global surface warming”, a new study suggests.
But, the new study notes, such past changes happened before humans started pumping billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. For example, the researchers suggest the AMOC was in a “weak” phase between 1975 and 1998 – yet global surface temperatures rose rapidly during that period.
The researchers theorise that human-caused warming has essentially changed the principal role of the AMOC from shifting heat northwards to storing heat in the deep Atlantic.
When the AMOC is strong, there is more warm, salty water in the North Atlantic and the subsequent sinking transports more heat to the deep ocean. This lessens human-caused warming at the Earth’s surface, the researchers say. During periods of weak AMOC, less heat is being shifted into the deep ocean, and so more stays at the surface and temperatures rise rapidly.
www.google.com
