SCIENTISTS ISSUE URGENT WARNINGS FOR TWO OCEAN EVENTS

IN THE ANTARCTIC, AN ENORMOUS GLACIER IS SET TO BREAK APART AND COLLAPSE INTO THE SEA, POSING AN IMMEDIATE THREAT TO THE WORLD'S COASTLINES AND ALL THEIR INHABITANTS.

AGAIN, FROM THE WASHINGTON POST, SEPT. 29, 2015:  

"Scientists who have been raising alarms about the endangered ice sheet of West Antarctica say they’ve identified a key glacier that could pose the single most immediate threat to the world’s coastlines — and are pushing for an urgent new effort to study it.

The glacier is not one that most Americans will have even heard of — Thwaites Glacier along the Amundsen Sea. 

It’s a monstrous body that is bigger than Pennsylvania and has discharged over 100 billion tons of ice each year in recent years.

The glacier is both vast and vulnerable, because its ocean base is exposed to warm water and because of an unusual set of geographic circumstances that mean that if it starts collapsing, there may be no end to the process. But it’s also difficult to study because of its location — not near any U.S. research base, and in an area known for treacherous weather. 

As a result, the researchers are also calling for more support from the federal government to make studying West Antarctica’s glaciers, and Thwaites in particular, a top priority."

[NO CAN DO, FELLOWS!

WE HAVE SEVERAL TRILLION U.S. DOLLARS TIED UP IN IDIOTIC, UNDECLARED WARS, STIRRING THE MIDDLE EAST POT SO ALL THOSE MUSLIM FOLKS KILL EACH OTHER.
AMERICAN LIVES BE DAMNED IF IT TAKES A PENNY AWAY FROM "WAR ON TERROR"!

THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX NEEDS EVERY BUCK THEY CAN SCRAPE TOGETHER.
FORGET ANY STUDY THAT MIGHT GIVE US A HEADS-UP ON PORTENDING DISASTER...UNLESS YOU CAN SOMEHOW LINK A "TERRORIST" OR TWO TO IT SOMEHOW.

IF IT DOESN'T INVOLVE INVOKING FEAR AND A SURRENDER OF AMERICAN LIBERTIES TO "KEEP AMERICA SAFE FROM TERRORIST THREAT", FORGET IT!

AMERICANS DON'T NEED NO STEEENKEEENG WARNINGS OF TSUNAMIS, EARTHQUAKES, RADIATION, ETC!

WAR ON TERROR, NOT NATURAL DISASTERS...GOT IT?]

The scientists are backed by a just released report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which concluded that the National Science Foundation – which runs U.S. Antarctic programs – should make research on Antarctica’s sea level implications its top priority, with a particular emphasis on West Antarctica. That’s because much of its ice is below sea level and thus “vulnerable to a runaway collapse process known as marine ice sheet instability.”

“There is an urgent need to understand this process in order to better assess how future sea level rise from ice sheets might proceed,” the report stated.  

It’s not just U.S. scientific authorities worrying about Thwaites.
 In Colorado, representatives of the British Antarctic Survey, which along with the United States is a leader of Antarctic research, sounded a similar note.

 A worry for decades. 

Concerns about West Antarctica aren’t new. 
In a landmark paper published in 1978, the Ohio State University glaciologist John Mercer singled out the region as posing a “threat of disaster” because the majority of the vast ice sheet is rooted far below sea level. Were it to melt due to global warming, “major dislocations in coastal cities, and submergence of low-lying areas such as much of Florida and the Netherlands, lies ahead,” Mercer wrote.

There’s so much heat in that layer, it could wipe out the entire ice sheet,” says Robert Bindschadler, a NASA researcher who headed the annual meeting of West Antarctic scientists for 20 years — even though the water is just a few degrees above freezing.

The water is also quite salty and dense, so it travels to the lowest accessible point of the submerged glacier — the so-called “grounding line,” where the glacier front touches the seafloor, hundreds of meters below the sea surface. And then, it starts a process of rapid melting. 

Last year, a pair of blockbuster research papers found not only that the Amundsen Sea’s glaciers were experiencing rapid grounding line retreat, but suggested that there may be no apparent end to the process. 

[LIKE I SAID, FORGET THAT!
FORGET SEA LEVEL RISE, FORGET IT!
FORGET FLORIDA AND LONG ISLAND AND NEW ORLEANS BEING DROWNED...WHO CARES?

MOVE ALONG, TO THE ATLANTIC, CLOSER TO HOME.
AS IF THAT WILL MATTER EITHER...]

What explains the cold blob in the North Atlantic?

[HERE'S THE TEA ROOM'S TAKE ON IT, AND THEN WHAT THE SCIENTISTS ARE SAYING:
THE CIRCULATION OF THE ENTIRE NORTH ATLANTIC IS SLOWING DOWN BECAUSE OF THOSE DAMNABLE MASSIVE, ONGOING, UNPLUGGED OIL SPILLS IN THE GULF AND THE MEGA-DEAD ZONES THOSE ATROCITIES CREATED WHICH ARE TOXIC TO ALL LIFE NEAR THEM.

EUROPE WILL ENJOY FRIGID WINTERS AGAIN, THANKS TO THIS

BUT, WHAT DO THE SCIENTISTS SAY?

THE WASHINGTON POST DARED TO PRINT THIS.
ARE THEY THE ONLY MSM WITH THE SPINE AND/OR INTESTINAL FORTITUDE TO DO SO?
LOOKS THAT WAY!]

SEPT, 30, 2015
"Michael Mann of Penn State and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research say that to see a pattern like this, in an otherwise record hot year, is a sign that the Atlantic ocean’s so-called “meridional overturning circulation” or AMOC — which is driven by differences in ocean temperature and salinity in the North Atlantic — may be slowing down.

Indeed, they say this fits nicely with a study they published earlier this year, which found an “exceptional” slowdown in the circulation over the course of the last century, and suggested that the dramatic melting of Greenland, by injecting large volumes of freshwater into the ocean, may be the cause.

[ROLLING EYES, LONG, DEEP SIGH, WHATEVER. NEVER BLAME OIL SPILLS AND THE COMPANIES WHO REFUSE TO CLEAN THEM UP OR STOP THEIR FLOW.]

In the Atlantic ocean, warm surface water flows northward off the U.S.’s east coast — a current known as the Gulf Stream — and then continues into the North Atlantic. Here the current branches into different segments and eventually reaches regions where colder, salty water sinks beneath the surface, because of its greater density. It is this sinking that keeps the warmer waters flowing northward — they’re basically filling the gap that’s left behind by the sinking waters.

The problem is that a freshening of the North Atlantic — due to large amounts of melting from Greenland — might reduce the density of cold surface waters and prevent sinking. And that, in turn, would slow down northward heat transport. That’s what Mann, Rahmstorf, and their colleagues think is happening — and that the “blob” is a telling sign.

However, this is a vast and complicated system, and not every researcher is yet convinced they’re right about this. The trouble is that in the North Atlantic, much as with the global climate in general, there are human-caused factors, and then there are wobbles in the system that just happen on their own — what researchers often call “natural variability.” 

In the North Atlantic in particular, variability in surface winds can shape ocean temperatures, and researchers have accordingly identified a variety of different “modes” of variability in the Atlantic involving winds and ocean temperature patterns.

Last year in Nature Geoscience, Jon Robson and his colleagues from the University of Reading in the UK published research suggesting that deep ocean waters in the Labrador Sea to the southwest of Greenland are becoming less dense, and that this evidence, combined with other measurements, “suggest that a substantial change in the AMOC is unfolding now.”

One research project, the so-called RAPID program, has been monitoring the ocean circulation at 26.5 degrees north Latitude — a west-to-east line that cuts through Florida — so as to determine the total strength of heat flux northward. This work began in 2004.

So far, says Meric Srokosz of University of Southampton, who runs the UK side of the program (in collaboration with researchers at the University of Miami and NOAA), RAPID has detected a “slow decline in the circulation over 10 years we have been measuring, and that decline is faster than the climate models predict.”

That includes a very “dramatic” decline from 2009-2010 that was associated with a sudden rise of sea level along the U.S. east coast, Srokosz says.

“The ocean has been delivering about 20 percent less heat to the North Atlantic” over the last decade, adds William Johns, an oceanographer at the University of Miami who also collaborates on the RAPID program.

What really happens if the circulation slows down?

[MAYBE, WHAT, A DOZEN PEOPLE GIVE A RIP ABOUT THE ANSWER?
BUT, JUST FOR FUN, BECAUSE FUN IS SO...FUN...LET'S HAVE THE ANSWER.THEN WE CAN GET BACK TO FUN.]

There would definitely be impacts. Sea level rise along the East Coast of the U.S. would be expected, because the Gulf Stream features warmer waters — which take up more space — on its European side. That keeps sea level higher away from our coast, but if the circulation weakens, the ocean might even out — delivering rising seas to cities like New York and Boston.

Indeed, during the sharp circulation slowdown measured in 2009-2010, sea levels suddenly rose 4 inches on the U.S. east coast.

Major temperature changes in the ocean would also have a dramatic effect on marine life.

[WHO CARES IF ALL MARINE LIFE DIES? SAME DOZEN PEOPLE?]

“This circulation pattern is tied to the productivity of the North Atlantic, one of the most productive regions from a fisheries standpoint,” says Mann. “So if the AMOC were literally to shut down, you could see sharp decreases in marine productivity in this region.”

One would also expect changes in weather — one recent climate change modeling study of what would happen with a slowdown of the AMOC found a “strengthening of the North Atlantic storm track.” Less northward heat transport by the ocean could also partly offset the rising temperature trend expected due to global warming. Whether the result would actually be a net cooling is not clear — but it certainly would not be a new ice age."

[NO ICE AGE?

THAT'S NO FUN!

AND HERE IS THE 'MENTALITY' OF HALF, AT LEAST, OF AMERICANS:
"CLIMATE CHANGE IS A BIG OLD BUNCH OF CRAPOLA BECAUSE MY 3rd COUSIN, 15 TIMES REMOVED, WHO PASSED 4th GRADE SAYS SO! AND SO DOES MY CONGRESSMAN WHO JUST GOT BUSTED FOR HIS 10th FELONY!
WHYYY, JUST BECAUSE SOME COASTAL AREAS ARE ALREADY UNDERWATER THAT WEREN'T 10 YEARS AGO, SO WHAT?"  

MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE REAL WORLD, AWAY FROM "FANTASY ISLAND" WHERE NO ONE CAN SPELL 'ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN'...]
"The Atlantic overturning is one of Earth's most important heat transport systems, pumping warm water northwards and cold water southwards. Also known as the Gulf Stream system, it is responsible for the mild climate in northwestern Europe. Scientists now found evidence for a slowdown of the overturning—multiple lines of observation suggest that in recent decades, the current system has been weaker than ever before in the last century, or even in the last millennium."

THE GULF OF MEXICO IS STILL DYING...GEOENGINEERING WATCH:

"There have been several significant developments over the past few decades in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) which now require special and immediate attention.  The multitude of oil spills — both large and small — require extraordinary remediation measures, as well as the application of safe and proven technologies which will not make the existing hydrocarbon pollution worse. There are other major sources of water pollution in the GOM which have also became apparent, particularly since the eye-opening 2010 BP oil spill."

The Gulf of Mexico is Dying: A Special Report On The BP Gulf Oil Spill

DON'T LET THIS INTERFERE WITH THAT FOOTBALL GAME.
IT'S JUST SCIENCE BABBLE, RIGHT?

WHEN IT'S "THE THING" ALL OVER TV, AND EVEN THE GOOD OL' BOYS AT THE PUB ARE TALKING ABOUT IT, THEN IT WILL BE TOO, LATE, MAYBE.

WE CAN HOPE...
______________________________

WHATEVER:
NEW YORK ALREADY SEEING FLOODING...WHO CARES!

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/09/28/scientists-say-new-york-city-already-faces-much-worse-flood-risks-due-to-rising-seas/  

MIAMI SINKING...WAY TO GO, MIAMI!
http://www.gulf-times.com/environment/231/details/406525/miami,-other-cities-in-florida,-usa-slowly-sinking-into-rising-sea-

SO LONG, COASTAL FLORIDA!

PACIFIC ISLANDS DISAPPEARING?
WELL, SERVES THEM RIGHT FOR LIVING ON AN ISLAND!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/02/150213-tuvalu-sopoaga-kench-kiribati-maldives-cyclone-marshall-islands/

BYE-BYE, "BIG EASY".
I KNEW YE WELL...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/louisiana-sea-level-rise_n_5731916.html

NAAAAAH, IT WON'T EVER HAPPEN HERE!

ALL A BUNCH OF BUNK!

AND THAT, CADETS, MAY JUST ABOUT BE A WRAP FOR ME AND THE TEA ROOM...
SICK OF THE COMPLACENCY, APATHY AND BLIND DENIAL OF EVERYTHING THAT PERTAINS TO THE WORLD WE LIVE IN...
JUST PLAIN SICK OF IT.

"GOOD LUCK!"

ON THE "LEARN OR PERISH" DECISION, MOST CHOOSE PERISH.

"SO LET IT BE WRITTEN, SO LET IT BE DONE..."