Scientist (cough) are now predicting an ice age in Europe… And they blame it on global warming. Better- they base the whole prediction on one set of ocean temps they did not expect.
Failing ocean current raises fears of mini ice age
The ocean current that gives western Europe its relatively balmy climate is stuttering, raising fears that it might fail entirely and plunge the continent into a mini ice age.
The dramatic finding [STOP THE TAPE] comes from a study of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream. [STOP THE TAPE]
Stop the tape… A dramatic FINDING? This is not a finding. It is a conclusion at best but more accurately a prediction. The -finding- is that some temps were not what researchers thought they were going to measure. Everything after that is conjecture.
Never let the media confuse a finding with a prediction.
The slow-down, which has long been predicted as a possible consequence of global warming, will give renewed urgency to intergovernmental talks in Montreal, Canada, this week on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
Bogus New Alert! When the third sentence of a news story says “See, this proves we should agree to Kyoto” the whole story is officially suspect.
Harry Bryden at the Southampton Oceanography Centre in the UK, whose group carried out the analysis, says he is not yet sure if the change is temporary or signals a long-term trend.
I’m confused… In the first 2 paragraphs it was a done deal.. It was a FINDING for goodness sake… Now we learn that the researcher has no clue if this is even a temporary change or not? Maybe that haste over Kyoto was misplaced?
We don’t want to say the circulation will shut down,” he told New Scientist. “But we are nervous about our findings. They have come as quite a surprise.”
So…. You got some data you did not expect… From there -someone- (it’s unclear who from the story) FOUND that we were going to have an ice age if we don’t agree to Kyoto. This is getting thinner by the minute.
The North Atlantic is dominated by the Gulf Stream – currents that bring warm water north from the tropics. At around 40° north – the latitude of Portugal and New York – the current divides. Some water heads southwards in a surface current known as the subtropical gyre, while the rest continues north, leading to warming winds that raise European temperatures by 5°C to 10°C.
But when Bryden’s team measured north-south heat flow last year, using a set of instruments strung across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to the Bahamas, they found that the division of the waters appeared to have changed since previous surveys in 1957, 1981 and 1992.
FOUR. DATA. POINTS.
4 data points in 50 years on a planet a few bazillion years old. They get data they did not expect, they have no idea why it happened or if it is just temporary or not but by golly there is an ice age acoming and we better sign Kyoto. OY! Talk about putting several carts before a single horse.
El Niño warms the water in the Pacific every 4 or 5 years and we’ve known of this cycle for over 400 years. [Long before the evil United States] Could it be that maybe -just maybe- something like this might happen elsewhere on the planet? (gasp)
No, we won’t look at unexpected data and wonder why we were wrong, we now look at unexpected data and draw conclusions. If we didn’t know the temps were going to be that high, how the hell can we explain why they were AND use them to predict what it means for the future?
I’m not even going to finish debunking this article, it’s not worth my time. But I will add, I really expected more from newscientist.com.
Mars is warming? I blame Halliburton.
Peer review? You mean like this?
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398
Money quote:
But Richard Wood, chief oceanographer at the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre for climate research in Exeter, says the Southampton team’s findings leave a lot unexplained. The changes are so big they should have cut oceanic heating of Europe by about one-fifth – enough to cool the British Isles by 1°C and Scandinavia by 2°C. “We haven’t seen it yet,” he points out.
We didn’t listen!!!!!
There appears to be a major philosophical difference between those who believe in the scientific method as it is currently defined (and, by extension, peer review) and those who don’t.
For those who don’t, if you’d like to dispute the paper from Nature, write in to the editors with your hypothesis, and back it up with experimental evidence. Think that the number of data points are insufficient for the conclusions of the paper? Dispute it- show how the data is statistically invalid. Science, above all, thrives on controversy and paradigm shifts. Anyone with solid evidence against the paper is sure to be published, and sure to get funding. And certain to be subject to a vigorous debate. Remember- the truth will prevail!
Look at the recent Nobel Prize in Medicine, awarded to two Australian physicians who showed that ulcers are caused by bacteria (and not stress, as previously believed). Their finding was met with scorn and controversy initially, and they could barely present their results at conferences without censure. Now, two decades later, they have received the most prestigious prize in science. And their theory is regarded as sound by the vast majority of physicians.
There is a bright and sunny future for anyone who can prove the majority of climatologists are incorrect. Maybe even a Nobel…
Denita asked me to back up my figures, and I did immediately.
I asked her to back hers up, and we hear nothing…
Just for fun, let me remind the thread what Denita said:
“130 times, you say? Care to back up your “figures” with some facts, kiddies? Or did you get this stupid by breathing sulfur fumes as you measured an active volcano…? I’m as willing to Google my facts as you are to flip through the latest issue of Mother Earth News to find yours.”
You really think that we humies are capable of rivalling the average volcano in carbon dioxide output?
Well, if you include Howard Dean as a “humie”…
Catfish — that’s because she keeps “believing what she wants to believe and if it doesn’t fit her tunnel-vision worldview she’ll just do what every good libbie[?!?] does–cover her ears and scream “I”M NOT LISTENING! LALALALA!!” until the opposing side gives up in disgust.” I think she also said that that’s something that “bunnyfuckers” do. (Lot of projection going on with these people, huh?) Really, it’s just best to drop it — the concepts of “facts” and “science” just don’t matter for some people.
No, it’s because I have a three year old son and a family to take care of. Unlike basement-dwelling masturbation-monkeys like yourselves, I have a life beyond the keyboard.
I was impressed with the speed with which you responded with references, and I was going to commend you on backing up your statements–and assure you that I will consider, them along with any other references that have been offered by EITHER SIDE. I would have valued them in my ongoing quest to discover what is truth–global warming, global cooling, or neither. BUT you have since gone on to continue behaving like a smug little assnugget. Not just here at Wizbang’s site, but having the temerity to slime onto MY site and drop shit into a comment thread on one of my HUSBAND’S posts which had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with ANYTHING discussed here. Rather than quietly wait for my rebuttal or response, you tried to drag the fight into an area where it was neither necessary nor welcome.
Whether you have won or lost no longer matters, because either way you’re still a fuckstick deserving of none of my respect. You’re either a sore winner or a sore loser. And you’re still a degenerate pig-fucker.
–TwoDragons
This pig has a 3 year old? Jesus! anybody know the number for child welfare?
It is true that most scientists agree that GW occurs and that human activity is a part of it.
To imply though that there is any kind of consensus about the pace of the warming, or the degree of human involvement, is misleading.
It is not necessary to deny GW to be against Kyoto. Even many on the left are concluding that the effectiveness of Kyoto is less – and the costs much greater – than the hope and hype in which the plan was born.
We simply have to have better plans. To get there, we are going to need better data, and a better working environment than politics and the usual retrenchment to fast-held positions.
To state that volcanic activity and sunspots have been factored in is again misleading. It is the degree to which, as before, that is the question.
I don’t have the answer, but I do know that calling one group leftist moonbats and the other side Jesus freaks is probably not it.
Come on, folks on the right admit that GW is real and is a threat (degree to which later); on the left, admit to not know the unknowable, and that Kyoto is a failed regime.
Denita–
Well, I don’t think the fact that I posted a link to this blog on your own blog really makes a difference in the facts.
Thanks for commending me on backing up my facts! The truth does matter, and I’m glad you agree that I made accurate statements and supported them. On the other hand, you just made up your own facts, and then when I contested them, YOU accused ME of being unable to back up my facts while stating that YOU look to reputable sources for your facts. I responded immediately with credible sources…and again, even you agree that I backed my facts up–in fact, you wanted to commend me!
Anyway, after this episode, the people who read your blog should be warned about how you operate. I wouldn’t want to get my facts from you!
Back to the topic (although that was a first class drubbing and a fantastically entertaining response).
What didn’t make the post is this (from Science magazine news):
[…] The slowing [of the current], although sizable, is comparable to the estimated uncertainty of the observations, Bryden notes. Still, “it’s real variability,” he says.
“The pattern is reasonably convincing,” says physical oceanographer Peter Rhines of the University of Washington, Seattle. “It’s a pretty nice picture.” Some think the picture is still fuzzy, however. Ocean and climate modeler Richard Wood of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, U.K., says that, like any part of the complex climate system, the conveyor is bound to slow down at times and speed up at others. The two latest surveys may have happened to catch the Atlantic as the conveyor slowed temporarily, he says, giving the impression that a permanent change had taken place. It may take a decade or two more of watching and waiting to know for sure.
The original Nature article (which is in the form of a letter, and should have been linked).
An separate Nature article puts the research in perspective, noting that the findings are somewhat supported by other research. Additionally, it points out areas where Bryden and his colleagues may have run into problems when analyzing the data.
It may be time to begin planning my family’s return to the US from Switzerland.
I agree with Maggie. How can an ice age be caused by global warming? If the Earth is getting warmer, than an ice age should be impossible. Call it global cooling.
Personally, I don’t think anything is dramatically changing. Some years are hotter, some are cooler. If there’s a trend buried in all the temperature readings, it’s a VERY slow moving trend. The nice thing about slow moving trends is they give you plenty of time to adjust.
The difference between now and 50 years ago is that if you went around 50 years ago yelling “The End is Near!”, people called you a lunatic. Today, they call you a science reporter.
I have to commend Catfish, Seamus and Earl for their heroic efforts to educate these brainwashed serfs. Reading this post and others like it one is struck by a couple of observations:
1. In any thread discussing G.Warming you can always count on the Republican to be the first to use insults as an argument, here Maggie’s post was the first to call names.Incidentally I find it interesting that although Denita Two Dragons began her first post with the line: “You arrogant bunch of libtard punks. ” and ends by saying Catfish doesn’t deserve her respect.Well call me Snobbish but one ususally has no desire for respect from a body who addresses one with the words ” degenerate pig-fucker.”
2. In any thread where Republicans/Conservatives are “arguing” with those of other POVs. The RepCons invariably either fail to understand the precision of language utilized in intellectual debate or purposefully ignore it. For example Maureen says “Wow. So every scientist that disagrees with you that the main reason for global warming is man is a hack getting money from “the Man?”” Seamus patiently points out that the actual words used were “the scientists that disagree are mostly hacks” Mostly DOES NOT equal Every. Maureen then attempts to defend herself by accusing Seamus of quoting wrongly when she extends her quote “So every scientist that disagrees with you…” This in no way validates her initial point, she still does not see that mostly and every do not mean the same thing. Anyway CONGRATULATIONS to CATFISH for an excellent thrashing.People should ensure they have educated themselves on a subject before insulting its proponents. And The O’Reilly Factor does not constitute education.
I am RIGHT in the middle of the road on this topic. I fully believe that we should take care of Earth and do all that we can to live WITH the planet, and not against it. In the grand scheme of things we are guests here, and if we abuse our privlidges too much we will be smote. Not by the hands of god, but by our lifesource, Earth. Earth has things so perfectly balanced, so DELICATELY balanced. But, Earth is stronger and more resiliant than people give her credit for. It is not EARTH we should fear for. Because all of us, even if we were TRYING could not destroy the Earth. All we can really do is destroy most of the life on Earth. Now obviously that is a bad thing, but if we are stupid enough to destroy that which sustains us, we deserve what we get. Be it ice age, heat wave, draught, famine, war, etc etc. If global warming is something we have direct control over, we should obviously try to reverse whatever negative effects we have wrought. However, if it is something we cannot control *which may very well be the case, *but my we humans do have a very strong need for control over EVERYTHING don’t we* we should then just accept the fact that if the climate changes it is survival of the fittest. Eventually, no matter what we do, most of the human population if not all of it will die. We are but a page in history, ONE page. There were thousands of pages before us, and there will be many more after we are gone…
Um, why don’t you oh so concerned, oh so superior elites lead the way? Hmmm. Where are the energy communes of the true believers? I like oil, it keeps the General Lee happy, but if we need to cut back I’ll happily heat my home with the reactor built in your back yard. I laugh my @$$ off at all the liberal hypocrites shrieking and wetting themselves over the thought of a windfarm in *their* precious Nantucket Sound. Every time its put up or shut up the leftists fall back on their true nature… “not for me, but for thee”.
Nat’l Geographic (the sky is falling folks,) have actually reported major discoveries of huge thermoplumes of heat arising from the Indian Ocean floor to the tune of 100,000 megawatts, saying many more are around and even larger. They actually admit that they effect ocean currents hence the world’s climate. These are tectonic plate volcanic type things, so increases and decreases in temperature could easily accounted for.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1212_051212_megaplume_2.html