Alarm Over Dramatic Weakening of Gulf Stream

The first thing that this brings to mind is diatom blooms, aka Red Tides. Red tides are caused when conditions favor explosive growth of large volumes of photosynthetic diatoms.

Diatoms are algae that have a red pigment photosynthetic compound. When conditions favor excessive growth, the water becomes brownish or redish. The real problem, however, is that the diatoms also contain compounds that are toxic to plant and animal life.

In other words, all the ocean life like swimming fish, crabs, shrimp, etc. in the area of a bloom dies, and anything that eats the dead stuff becomes poisoned.

One of the issues related to the gulf stream, in fact, is that significant changes in ocean salinity and temprature could favor massive diatom blooms, blooms which would cover major portions of (or even entire) oceans. That would be really bad for any number of reasons beyond the obvious ones like the removal of large portions of the worlds food supply.

I maybe missing some bit of information in telling of the "iron plan", but on the surface doing anything that might increase the growth of photosynthetic creatures in the sea strikes me as a really. bad. idea.

 

Found this on google news.

http://www.theshorthorn.com/archive/2005/fall/05-nov-11/n111105-07.html
Some scientists don't like the plan.

All photosynthetic plants would increase with iron seeding, not just diatoms. If you're talking about nitrogen or phosphorous, scientists would definitely know that diatoms would have the competitive advantage.

 

Let me use draw an analogy, if you don't mind. I don't know if you know who Leslie Groves is? I would have no idea except for a film called Fat Man and Little Boy staring Paul Newman.

Groves was the General in charge of the Manhattan project. Groves had a group of scientists who thought that theoretically nuclear bombs could be built and some who didn't. He also had some limited intelligence evidence which showed that the Germans were working on a bomb, but it was far from clear. He also had a pretty good idea how incredibly expensive a project it would be (it turned out to cost $20 billion which was a significant fraction of total WWII costs for the US).

Compared to the possibility that the Nazi's might make this thing which may or may not be possible, he plowed ahead. The result? Well embarrassingly the Germans stopped working on the bomb, fairly early. A whole bunch of money could have been saved for more directly critical war material. Oops.

On the other hand, imagine you are the hypothetical "Leslie Groves of Japan". You are presented with something that may or may not be possible, and you have some limited intelligence that the enemy is working on the concept. If at any point in the process you decide that you must a.)wait for proof that the concept actually is possible, or b.)wait for conclusive evidence that the process of building a bomb is occurring, you may actually save some money. Unfortunately for this hypothetical general, however, by the time you get conclusive proof that the bomb is physically possible and that the process of making a bomb has been done by your enemy, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are smoldering piles of ash and you've delayed so long that you won't be able to save yourself.

In principal I agree that many of the "signs" of global warming are not really that, but instead normal cyclic fluctuations. I agree that the ineviatability of the process under current conditions is far from definate. I also understand that it is costly to do anything about.

What we do have is majority concensus that the physics behind the proposed phenomina is more or less correct. We also have limited, though definately not nearly conclusive evidence that the theory is correct. It pains me when every moron in the world goes around screaming about global warming as a scare tactic. A quick Google search reveals the following;

Don't let the profit system ruin the Earth! from the Socialist Party of the UK

US Must Rejoin Kyoto, Regulate CO2, or Face More Disasters from "The Green Party of the US"

or more interestingly

Why Kyoto will vanish into hot air which details why Kyoto was systemically more favorable for Europe, and details it's nature as a political tool to bash the US

but that's no worse than

The EU's Global-Warming Fantasy which decides that Global Warming isn't happening because it costs too much.

The problem with waiting for definitive proof of global warming is that by the time evidence presents itself, the process will be near to impossible to mitigate. There is a threashold point of temprature retention just like there is a threshold point for nuclear reaction (K). When the bomb's gone off you have proof, but at that point it's too late to do anything about.

 

Thanks. In that case it sounds intriguing. I'd still be very much in favor of extensive testing (as you already suggested). Diatom blooms are potentially scary things.

One thing I do know from growing roses is that Iron in the readily available forms is fairly powerful stuff that will significantly decrease soil pH and are easy to apply excessively. How this would play out in solution in the oceans would need to be determined by someone smarter than me.

 

Regardless of the various theories being tossed around, a 30% decrease in the Gulf Stream over 50 years is damned significant. I hope they check this far more regularly. The impact could be enormous.

In other words. we should keep a close eye on it while everyone fights over who's model really fits, and what, if anything, we can do about it. I wish the United States wasn't so totally driven by quarterly profits. It's easy for me to imagine my grandchildren, and their children, looking back at the history of this country and wondering, "what the hell were they thinking??"



Keep D&D Civil.

 

Dumping a lot of iron into the ocean sounds crazy because its difficult to predict what kind of negative affects may occur but of course we're already engaged in the unitentional experiment of dumping vast quantities of nitrates and phosphates into the ocean and lots of C02 and carbon compounds into the atmosphere.

We're already tampering with the Earth's climate on a grand scale.

 

the ironic thing is that the struggle is often cast in terms of the environment vs. economics --- the two go hand in hand. Throughout history, when societies have totally f-cked over their environment (easter island, e.g.) the economy (and population) crashes along with it. but the idiots who run the WSJ editorial page will never realize this.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2005120...QUDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

MONTREAL (AFP) - Global warming is melting the Arctic ice so fast that a new sea route is opening up between the Atlantic and the Pacific -- and with it the risk of a territorial dispute between Canada and the United States.

Temperatures around the North Pole are rising twice as fast as in the rest of the planet, according to UN and Canadian government experts.

By 2050, they warn, ships will be able to sail around northern Canada for most of the summer.

This could reduce the sea trip from London to Tokyo to 16,000 kilometers (9,950 miles), against 21,000 kilometers (13,000 miles) via the Suez Canal or 23,000 kilometers (14,300 miles) going through the Panama Canal.

The search for a Northwest Passage to Asia inspired explorers from the 15th to the 17th centuries. Many died. But now greenhouse gases are opening up the passage for them.

"There are now more and more ice-free portions of Arctic maritime territory," said Frederic Lasserre, a geographer and specialist on the Arctic, at Laval University in Quebec.

If a ship has a reinforced hull, and the winds and currents are in the right direction, it is already "relatively easy" to take the route around the small islands and straights around Canada's Arctic territory, Lasserre added.

Arctic temperatures are expected to rise significantly by the end of the century, according to experts, which will melt even more glaciers.

"What we are seeing in the Arctic, and what we are seeing further south with the hurricanes, are the most pessimistic models of global warming," said Louis Fortier, an oceanographer who has just returned from an expedition to the region on the Canadian research vessel Amundsen.

Lasserre predicted that within 30 years it would probably be possible for ships not normally equipped for the Arctic to tackle the Northwest passage.

About 20-30 ships currently take it each summer now.

In a territorial dispute now linked to the global warming problem, Canada criticizes the United States,
European Union and even Japan for not recognising its 1986 claim of sovereignty to waters around the Arctic archipelago. The United States insists that these are international waters.

An American ice-breaker went through the archipelago in 1985 causing a diplomatic dispute with Canada, which reaffirmed its claim to the territorial waters.

Canada, which is also arguing with Denmark over a small island off Greenland, based its territorial sovereignty on the ice that then linked all of the Arctic islands. But cracks are quickly forming in the claim.

If sovereignty of the Northwest passage ever came before a court, Canada could lose its ability to impose navigational rules in the region.

There are huge environmental issues at stake. Canada would be unable to deny passage to any vessel that meets international standards for environmental protection, crew training and safety procedures.

The United States argues that all waters between two open seas should be open to all shipping.

Lasserre emphasized how the maritime and continental plateau frontier between the United States and Canada has never been formally agreed -- and this will become another looming dispute.

The commercial stakes are also high as the Beaufort Sea, which touches the Yukon in Canada and the US state of Alaska, has huge reserves of oil and natural gas.

Experts have highlighted how access to these reserves will become a lot easier as global warming increases.

Lasserre said that there is more than oil to be found in the Arctic. "There is also gold, diamonds, copper and zinc. There is going to be a lot of traffic caused by the mining exploration," he said.

 

Excellent point Sam!

Its only very shortsighted thinking that causes people to consider this economically negatively. Creating new energy efficient technologies will save money and resources in the long run. Cleaning up the environment also potentially could create as many new jobs as those lost. Also the costs of potentially catastrophic climate change will be economically huge. Katrina is the most expensive disaster in history but just imagine several Katrinas as sea levels rise and ocean temps warm leading to more storms.

 

Just love how 50-80 years of weather data means scientists know what happened thousands of years ago.

Face it you guys. The weather is unpredictable. See "Hurricane Season 2005." Some may have sort of "called it," but no one nailed it by far.

Also, as to "man's impact" on the world/global warming. Did you know that the combined weight of all species of ants (the insects) on this planet is equal to, perhaps even slightly outweighs the combined weight of all humans?

Maybe we are not as big a factor as we think we are here. Maybe it's ant farts. Cow farts. I've heard theories on this kind of thing as well. The longer earth exists... the more every species contributes to pollution or green house gases. And let's be real, we're out numbered on the planet.


Anyway, most long term (as in years-out/global trend) weather forecasts are about like this:

[Karma Chameleon video playing in background]
Beavis: "What's this?"
Butthead: "It looks like the future."
Beavis: "Change it!"
Butthead: "I'm pretty cool, Beavis. But I can't change the future."

I doubt reality is like "The Day After Tomorrow."

 

The history of Greenhouse Effect

Ocean Currents and Climate from the Spencer Weart & American Institute of Physics
learn ya sumthin!

 

Environmentalists aren't usually taken seriously without having sound and basic economic principles in mind. To work with the system and get the best compromise, successful environmentalists have to hammer in and elaborate on the external costs (in a cost benefit ratio) that companies neglect or choose to ignore on purpose. If you don't factor in the best approximation of an external costs, theoretically, you'd get an inefficient system....

For example, if you take two identical cities and the only difference is air quality, you'll see lower productivity (in sick days and chronic illnesses) and higher medical care expenses in the city with the poor air. Even if the "clean city" pays higher and seemingly unfair taxes such as refinery dues or enforced installation of catylist converters, the investment pays for itself beyond a better view or more healthy looking animals while taking a stroll in the park.

These benefits are also unseen and taken for granted (duh, it's external), so the inevitable danger of relying on our current mode of thinking is there politically. The public punishes mistakes or the appearance of no action, while they can reward high profile yet insignificant policies. We overspend on radiation cleanup in comparison to chemical industry cleanup. We preserve cute and cuddly animals while ignoring small or ugly animals that might repair the soil or have other profound effects.

You can apply this on all fronts of politics.... Much like some high profile CEOs, who are champions until they land into criminal hearings, the public rewards shortsighted politicians who promote instant gratification for their constituents.

So I don't think corporations should entirely be blamed. Everyone is an environmentalist but everyone generally doesn't like giving handouts either. The public needs a swift kick in the teeth for their proof. They need higher electricity bills during air conditioning season or more incidences of non-smokers with lung cancer in urban areas for that realization that the world aint right.

 

No doubt, Deckard.

And although the Northeast will feel some of the impact, I expect that the British and many other Europeans are quite motivated and will stay on top of this.

 

That's possibly true but the difference is that we're the only species smart enough to possibly due something about it.

Anyway the premise of your argument is faulty. If it is ant farts causing global warming it doesn't mean that us adding CO2 and other gases into the environment into the atmosphere isn't contributing to it or that jsut because it isn't human caused means its not going to do anything negative towards humans, our societies and our economies.

Think about it this way. If your house starts flooding from a busted sewer main in the street does that mean that its fine for you to turn on the garden hose inside house? Or does that mean you shouldn't start trying to sand bag and bail out your house?

 

Wow, what an impressive lack of knowledge.

 

Exactly genius.