[Vision2020] Realclimate.org 1-4-17: "The underestimated danger of a breakdown of the Gulf Stream System"

[Ted Moffett]

As the US continues with lifestyle and governing as though
anthropogenic global warming were way down the list of critical issues we
should be focusing on, in deed if not in pretense, the problem looms more
and more impossible to prevent.  Time is running out if it has not already.

But don't worry, the technological utopians will save us!

>From Realclimate.org this month, from Professor of the Physics
of the Oceans at Potsdam University, Stefan Rahmstorf. Part of the article
is pasted in:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/the-underestimated-danger-of-a-breakdown-of-the-gulf-stream-system/

The underestimated danger of a breakdown of the Gulf Stream System
Classé dans:

   - Climate modelling
   <http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/climate-science/climate-modelling/>
   - Climate Science
   <http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/climate-science/>
   - Oceans
   <http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/climate-science/oceans/>

— stefan @ 4 janvier 2017

*A new model simulation of the Gulf Stream System shows a breakdown of the
gigantic overturning circulating in the Atlantic after a CO2 doubling.*

A new study in *Science Advances* by Wei Liu and colleagues
<http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601666> at the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography in San Diego and the University of
Wisconsin-Madison has important implications for the future stability of
the overturning circulation in the Atlantic Ocean. They applied a
correction to the freshwater fluxes in the Atlantic, in order to better
reproduce the salt concentration of ocean waters there. This correction
changes the overall salt budget for the Atlantic, also changing the
stability of the model’s ocean circulation in future climate change. The
Atlantic ocean circulation is relatively stable in the uncorrected model,
only declining by about 20% in response to a CO2 doubling, but in the
corrected model version it breaks down completely in the centuries
following a CO2 doubling, with dramatic consequences for the climate of the
Northern Hemisphere.

The potential instability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning
Circulation or AMOC – commonly known as the Gulf Stream System – has been a
subject of research since the 1980s, when Wallace Broecker warned in an
essay in *Nature* of Unpleasant Surprises in the Greenhouse
<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/the-underestimated-danger-of-a-breakdown-of-the-gulf-stream-system/#ITEM-19900-0>.
The reason for this was growing evidence of abrupt climate changes in the
history of the Earth due to instability of Atlantic currents.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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