You know, Harvard's John Holdren (JFK school of government), who was Obama's science adviser and the director of Woods Hole, did a presentation at Harvard in 2006, and I went. He talked then about our having three options: immediate action, mitigation after climate change got started, and suffering when it fully set in. We're now in mitigation and rapidly headed toward the point in which we just suffer as the chaos is so woven into the weather cycles that no matter what we do it's not enough. What just FLOORS me is that the movers and shakers are so hellbent on their greed they just DO NOT CARE. And oil industry isn't making any plans to shift over to renewables, which might be a really good solution: they just want to sell more )^(*&^b oil. I'm furious. What kind of hell on earth are we leaving our kids and grandkids??? What kind of people are we?
Thank you for the update. I’ve been tracking this for about 25 years, but missed this study. Chaotic systems behave like this, as I’m sure you know. The change from one state to another is usually “abrupt,” but in this case such massive amounts of water are involved it takes a long time to slow the currents down.
Human kind just isn’t proactive enough to plan ahead far enough for events like this. We’re lucky to look ahead a few quarters at this point and unlucky enough to change the plan when someone decides it’s dumb to continue because of an election or it costs to much. Or, if Citizen T is elected, the plan will be to maximize profits and screw over the People in the process.
It doesn't take a long time for the currents to slow down. In the case of the Younger Dryas it took 50 years max -- and one study estimated it at TEN MONTHS.
Agreed. What is fascinating is the amount of energy being spent on the subject now. Ten to twenty years ago it was a tenth of this. Enough effort and collaboration will figure out the “answer”, and maybe in enough time to do something, but I doubt it. Hang on!!
The onset of the Younger Dryas Period when the ocean circulation came to an abrupt halt with the outpouring of a North American fresh water inland ocean into the North Atlantic caused worldwide ocean circulation to shut down in a matter of months. Within 10 months of the crash, Europe and Asia were in an ice age. It lasted 1,300 years, and when the salinity recovered to the point that he maelstroms started churning again, the climate recovered in less than a year. But the extinction of animals over 40kg and loss of plant species was massive. Other than methane outgassing from the seafloor, which may have killed 90% of species 55 million years ago, this is the greatest threat to human life on earth -- although in the near term it will collect moisture into ice sheets and prevent any further sea level rise. Since the end of the Younger Dryas, sea level has risen, with melting glaciers, 475 vertical feet. Ice ages lower sea levels, which is why sea floor coring 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey found arrowheads of the Indians who lived there during the last ice age.
There have been two main theories about the onset of the YD. A meteor/comet debris impact similar to Tunguska or Chelyabinsk, but much larger, or, as you point out, stoppage of the AMOC by freshwater intrusion from 5000 years of warming just prior to 12,000 years ago. The meteor theory has had increasing traction as the editorial points out, and it may be gaining as more data points become known. Conversely, one of the linked articles says the precise trigger is still unconfirmed, even though the “generally accepted” conclusion is a stoppage of the AMOC.
Either way, the fact is the AMOC failed with massive collateral damage. Sadly, the current climate “focus”, if one can describe Global Warming as having an actual worldwide focus with massive committed effort, excludes the AMOC as a concern.
My original premise was that humankind is incapable of having a sustained focus for anything not related their survival. When whatever events do occur, the transition will be the hardest period of time and most humans are likely to perish.
Similarly, the Little Ice Age is being credited to an AMOC stoppage over a few decades following a very warm periods that resulted in massive cooling from the late 1300’s to the 1600’s.
“…Over the course of a few decades in the late 1300s and 1400s, vast amounts of ice were flushed out into the North Atlantic, which not only cooled the North Atlantic waters, but also diluted their saltiness, ultimately causing AMOC to collapse. It is this collapse that then triggered a substantial cooling….”
The comet/meteoric impact YD initiator theory has been around for longer than the article posits. Ditto for the AMOC salt driver interruption as the YD initiator. The editorial you cited presents the first 10,000 foot view that ties everything together. It’s about time!
However, because of the suddenness interrupti the YD start, it seems more likely that the YD initiator was a much larger atmospheric explosion generated by a Chelyabinsk or Tunguska type event centered in the Great Lakes region. This conclusion, according to the linked editorial, appears well supported by many field observations of the “burn mat,” impact or explosion generated microspherules, and the rare Pr, Ir, etc., found over a very large northern hemisphere area that extends from western upper North America to Europe This event is further supported by Greenland and Antarctica ice-core air and soot isotopes that evidence a massive fire somewhere in the world at the same time. Such a massive blast, or blasts, would result in SO2 and NOx in the global atmosphere which would result in a new ice age in a very short (like the 10 months you referenced).
At the same time, there is little doubt that the AMOC interruption was caused by a massive fresh water Atlantic area infusion through the St. Lawrence seaway from a massive melt of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the 5,000 year warming period immediately prior to the YD. A chaotic shut down of the AMOC’s salt driver may be abrupt, but won’t cause an ice age within a short period like ten months, and definitely will cause massive impacts on global weather. The flow rate of the AMOC is very slow and requires years to complete a cycle, as I recall from other readings over time (I don’t have the cites for this right now and may be able to resurrect them at some point). It’s more likely the AMOC shutdown required tens of years to impact the global weather system. This slowness supports a more gradual impact time frame of tens of years.
A meteor strike is implicitly chaotic and very abrupt event, but the forces driving the strike are unrelated to the chaotic nature of the AMOC, and vice versa. It appears that the impact and AMOC shutdown events were separate but occurred approximately simultaneously. The combined results compounded the impacts to the Earth’s climate systems massively.
But, conflating them doesn’t work when you describe the YD initiator as an abrupt event and suggest that a comet/meteoroid event can be mitigated through economic and use policies to te reduce GHG’s.
Having a Marine Science degree and some understanding of hydrology, the complexity this is indeed staggering. Currents had been changing in the Northern Hemisphere as well. We could be looking a the collapse of the Gulf Stream as it has been slowing down. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-huge-atlantic-ocean-current-downif.html
It isn't like we weren't told before; it's just a closer threat now. The question is: are the people who could change things listening and are they capable of being effective?
There is news this week that we may lose the entire Western Antarctic Ice Sheet. That would dump trillions of gallons of freshwater into the current that encircles Antarctica, and that would shut down global ocean circulation for sure, for the WAIS includes the Thwaites Glacier, known as the Doomsday Glacier. We know that in ancient times the WAIS melted completely in as little as 10 years (!!). Greenland is in a state known as exponential melting which goes like this: If you have a cube of ice, how long does it take to melt at room temperature? OK, now say you crush the ice cube so that the amount of surface exposed to warm air is now many times that of the single cube. We know that when pools of meltwater form on top of glaciers, the bore STRAIGHT DOWN TO THE BEDROCK. These are called moulins. Many of them boring down create more and more "surface" exposed to the air that melts ice. That's why the melting accelerates to the point that it goes "exponential." And then, poof! The glacier's just gone. ... Ice builds rapidly, too, under the right conditions. When Shakespeare wrote *Romeo and Juliet* in 1593, the Larsen ice shelf hadn't formed yet. Then it did. Then it broke up, causing a big problem at the south pole. ... The last time ocean currents collapsed, it took roughly 1,500 years for the salinity in the oceans to recover and jump-start circulation again. If it happens, it will be North America and Europe that get hit hardest--just like that time. Australia and Africa and a goodly chunk of southern Asia and the Pacific will fare better. But most of the "first-world" nations will get creamed. That's us. And Big Business, which owns Congress, doesn't care as long as they keep making morbidly obese profits in the short-term. But you're right: we were told.
Thank you for mentioning Shakespeare in relation to climate events. It gives a personal element to these warnings. Maybe these overgrown children posing as business leaders would catch on faster if they understood the effects of climate change on their precious dynasties.
Morgaan, follow this link to learn more about how the whirlpools are actually affecting the world wide current flows. ETH is cutting edge in nonlinear dynamics. https://phys.org/news/2013-09-black-holes-ocean.html
I’m sure they have other studies. Sornette has an excellent track record in predicting nonlinear events.
This article is very informative. It appears the role these monster play in global circulation is a relatively recent discovery. I’m very interested in the work done by a team from The University of Miami and ETH in nonlinear dynamics. One of the scientists I follow closely, Didier Sornette, actually found ETH’s nonlinear dynamics programs. Chaos math is based in nonlinear dynamics and many of my comments come from his research, but also others.
Didn’t know about these colossal gyres earlier and the first link you posted got my curiosity going. Most of my initial research was at least 15 years ago and I’m not sure these were known drivers then. At least they were not discussed in any of the AMOC literature I read.
I can't speak to the science, but here's more sobering food for thought.
Tens of thousands of climate change experts pumped jet fuel exhaust in to the atmosphere to attend the recent climate change conference in Dubai. Such clinging to outdated patterns of the past goes a long way to undermining the message these climate change experts wish to share.
And it's not just climate change experts. Elites of all types are still routinely flying to conferences all over the planet.
The point here is that whatever is coming, is coming, and humanity's expert and elite classes are not going to stop it. Hopefully the science here is wrong, but if it's not, the wise move for us at this point is to look beyond this civilization and this life. This may be a good time to pay more attention to reports from those who have had near death experiences. The coming changes may have an upside.
We absolutely must resolve political opinions and address CLIMATE NOW or whatever party ends up in the driver’s seat will make no difference. 🌎🌊❄️🥶🔥🕯️
I learned so much! Thank you! Human beings need to push politicians harder and harder to act.
You know, Harvard's John Holdren (JFK school of government), who was Obama's science adviser and the director of Woods Hole, did a presentation at Harvard in 2006, and I went. He talked then about our having three options: immediate action, mitigation after climate change got started, and suffering when it fully set in. We're now in mitigation and rapidly headed toward the point in which we just suffer as the chaos is so woven into the weather cycles that no matter what we do it's not enough. What just FLOORS me is that the movers and shakers are so hellbent on their greed they just DO NOT CARE. And oil industry isn't making any plans to shift over to renewables, which might be a really good solution: they just want to sell more )^(*&^b oil. I'm furious. What kind of hell on earth are we leaving our kids and grandkids??? What kind of people are we?
Are we worse than Nazis? We might observe how little attention we give to an even bigger threat.
https://www.tannytalk.com/p/nukes-are-we-worse-than-nazis
If Senator Manchin has his way, fossil fuels will line the pockets of too many politicians like him.
This is not new, been a major part of the industrial revolution sincew the beginnings. Recall the Teapot scandal. https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/teapot-dome-scandal
Thank you for the update. I’ve been tracking this for about 25 years, but missed this study. Chaotic systems behave like this, as I’m sure you know. The change from one state to another is usually “abrupt,” but in this case such massive amounts of water are involved it takes a long time to slow the currents down.
Human kind just isn’t proactive enough to plan ahead far enough for events like this. We’re lucky to look ahead a few quarters at this point and unlucky enough to change the plan when someone decides it’s dumb to continue because of an election or it costs to much. Or, if Citizen T is elected, the plan will be to maximize profits and screw over the People in the process.
It doesn't take a long time for the currents to slow down. In the case of the Younger Dryas it took 50 years max -- and one study estimated it at TEN MONTHS.
Agreed. What is fascinating is the amount of energy being spent on the subject now. Ten to twenty years ago it was a tenth of this. Enough effort and collaboration will figure out the “answer”, and maybe in enough time to do something, but I doubt it. Hang on!!
The onset of the Younger Dryas Period when the ocean circulation came to an abrupt halt with the outpouring of a North American fresh water inland ocean into the North Atlantic caused worldwide ocean circulation to shut down in a matter of months. Within 10 months of the crash, Europe and Asia were in an ice age. It lasted 1,300 years, and when the salinity recovered to the point that he maelstroms started churning again, the climate recovered in less than a year. But the extinction of animals over 40kg and loss of plant species was massive. Other than methane outgassing from the seafloor, which may have killed 90% of species 55 million years ago, this is the greatest threat to human life on earth -- although in the near term it will collect moisture into ice sheets and prevent any further sea level rise. Since the end of the Younger Dryas, sea level has risen, with melting glaciers, 475 vertical feet. Ice ages lower sea levels, which is why sea floor coring 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey found arrowheads of the Indians who lived there during the last ice age.
https://beta.capeia.com/planetary-science/2019/06/03/disappearance-of-ice-age-megafauna-and-the-younger-dryas-impact
There have been two main theories about the onset of the YD. A meteor/comet debris impact similar to Tunguska or Chelyabinsk, but much larger, or, as you point out, stoppage of the AMOC by freshwater intrusion from 5000 years of warming just prior to 12,000 years ago. The meteor theory has had increasing traction as the editorial points out, and it may be gaining as more data points become known. Conversely, one of the linked articles says the precise trigger is still unconfirmed, even though the “generally accepted” conclusion is a stoppage of the AMOC.
Either way, the fact is the AMOC failed with massive collateral damage. Sadly, the current climate “focus”, if one can describe Global Warming as having an actual worldwide focus with massive committed effort, excludes the AMOC as a concern.
My original premise was that humankind is incapable of having a sustained focus for anything not related their survival. When whatever events do occur, the transition will be the hardest period of time and most humans are likely to perish.
Similarly, the Little Ice Age is being credited to an AMOC stoppage over a few decades following a very warm periods that resulted in massive cooling from the late 1300’s to the 1600’s.
“…Over the course of a few decades in the late 1300s and 1400s, vast amounts of ice were flushed out into the North Atlantic, which not only cooled the North Atlantic waters, but also diluted their saltiness, ultimately causing AMOC to collapse. It is this collapse that then triggered a substantial cooling….”
https://www.umass.edu/news/article/winter-coming-researchers-uncover-surprising-cause-little-ice-age#:~:text=Over%20the%20course%20of%20a,then%20triggered%20a%20substantial%20cooling.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2024692118
https://www.pnas.org/syndication/doi/10.1073/pnas.2007869117?doi=10.1073%2Fpnas.2007869117
https://www.umass.edu/news/article/winter-coming-researchers-uncover-surprising-cause-little-ice-age#:~:text=Over%20the%20course%20of%20a,then%20triggered%20a%20substantial%20cooling.
The comet/meteoric impact YD initiator theory has been around for longer than the article posits. Ditto for the AMOC salt driver interruption as the YD initiator. The editorial you cited presents the first 10,000 foot view that ties everything together. It’s about time!
However, because of the suddenness interrupti the YD start, it seems more likely that the YD initiator was a much larger atmospheric explosion generated by a Chelyabinsk or Tunguska type event centered in the Great Lakes region. This conclusion, according to the linked editorial, appears well supported by many field observations of the “burn mat,” impact or explosion generated microspherules, and the rare Pr, Ir, etc., found over a very large northern hemisphere area that extends from western upper North America to Europe This event is further supported by Greenland and Antarctica ice-core air and soot isotopes that evidence a massive fire somewhere in the world at the same time. Such a massive blast, or blasts, would result in SO2 and NOx in the global atmosphere which would result in a new ice age in a very short (like the 10 months you referenced).
At the same time, there is little doubt that the AMOC interruption was caused by a massive fresh water Atlantic area infusion through the St. Lawrence seaway from a massive melt of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the 5,000 year warming period immediately prior to the YD. A chaotic shut down of the AMOC’s salt driver may be abrupt, but won’t cause an ice age within a short period like ten months, and definitely will cause massive impacts on global weather. The flow rate of the AMOC is very slow and requires years to complete a cycle, as I recall from other readings over time (I don’t have the cites for this right now and may be able to resurrect them at some point). It’s more likely the AMOC shutdown required tens of years to impact the global weather system. This slowness supports a more gradual impact time frame of tens of years.
A meteor strike is implicitly chaotic and very abrupt event, but the forces driving the strike are unrelated to the chaotic nature of the AMOC, and vice versa. It appears that the impact and AMOC shutdown events were separate but occurred approximately simultaneously. The combined results compounded the impacts to the Earth’s climate systems massively.
But, conflating them doesn’t work when you describe the YD initiator as an abrupt event and suggest that a comet/meteoroid event can be mitigated through economic and use policies to te reduce GHG’s.
Having a Marine Science degree and some understanding of hydrology, the complexity this is indeed staggering. Currents had been changing in the Northern Hemisphere as well. We could be looking a the collapse of the Gulf Stream as it has been slowing down. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-huge-atlantic-ocean-current-downif.html
Seems things are speeding up and methane may be more the culprit than CO2. Think of the sinks holes from thawing permafrost. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/oct/27/sleeping-giant-arctic-methane-deposits-starting-to-release-scientists-find
It isn't like we weren't told before; it's just a closer threat now. The question is: are the people who could change things listening and are they capable of being effective?
There is news this week that we may lose the entire Western Antarctic Ice Sheet. That would dump trillions of gallons of freshwater into the current that encircles Antarctica, and that would shut down global ocean circulation for sure, for the WAIS includes the Thwaites Glacier, known as the Doomsday Glacier. We know that in ancient times the WAIS melted completely in as little as 10 years (!!). Greenland is in a state known as exponential melting which goes like this: If you have a cube of ice, how long does it take to melt at room temperature? OK, now say you crush the ice cube so that the amount of surface exposed to warm air is now many times that of the single cube. We know that when pools of meltwater form on top of glaciers, the bore STRAIGHT DOWN TO THE BEDROCK. These are called moulins. Many of them boring down create more and more "surface" exposed to the air that melts ice. That's why the melting accelerates to the point that it goes "exponential." And then, poof! The glacier's just gone. ... Ice builds rapidly, too, under the right conditions. When Shakespeare wrote *Romeo and Juliet* in 1593, the Larsen ice shelf hadn't formed yet. Then it did. Then it broke up, causing a big problem at the south pole. ... The last time ocean currents collapsed, it took roughly 1,500 years for the salinity in the oceans to recover and jump-start circulation again. If it happens, it will be North America and Europe that get hit hardest--just like that time. Australia and Africa and a goodly chunk of southern Asia and the Pacific will fare better. But most of the "first-world" nations will get creamed. That's us. And Big Business, which owns Congress, doesn't care as long as they keep making morbidly obese profits in the short-term. But you're right: we were told.
Thank you for mentioning Shakespeare in relation to climate events. It gives a personal element to these warnings. Maybe these overgrown children posing as business leaders would catch on faster if they understood the effects of climate change on their precious dynasties.
Morgaan, follow this link to learn more about how the whirlpools are actually affecting the world wide current flows. ETH is cutting edge in nonlinear dynamics. https://phys.org/news/2013-09-black-holes-ocean.html
I’m sure they have other studies. Sornette has an excellent track record in predicting nonlinear events.
This article is very informative. It appears the role these monster play in global circulation is a relatively recent discovery. I’m very interested in the work done by a team from The University of Miami and ETH in nonlinear dynamics. One of the scientists I follow closely, Didier Sornette, actually found ETH’s nonlinear dynamics programs. Chaos math is based in nonlinear dynamics and many of my comments come from his research, but also others.
https://interestingengineering.com/lists/fascinating-facts-about-whirlpools-maelstroms
Didn’t know about these colossal gyres earlier and the first link you posted got my curiosity going. Most of my initial research was at least 15 years ago and I’m not sure these were known drivers then. At least they were not discussed in any of the AMOC literature I read.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/6394/satellites-detect-deep-ocean-whirlpools
I can't speak to the science, but here's more sobering food for thought.
Tens of thousands of climate change experts pumped jet fuel exhaust in to the atmosphere to attend the recent climate change conference in Dubai. Such clinging to outdated patterns of the past goes a long way to undermining the message these climate change experts wish to share.
And it's not just climate change experts. Elites of all types are still routinely flying to conferences all over the planet.
The point here is that whatever is coming, is coming, and humanity's expert and elite classes are not going to stop it. Hopefully the science here is wrong, but if it's not, the wise move for us at this point is to look beyond this civilization and this life. This may be a good time to pay more attention to reports from those who have had near death experiences. The coming changes may have an upside.
Brilliant! Sharing widely!
Yup. A new twist on Day After Tomorrow, Volcano, Godzilla and Don’t Look Up all rolled into one!