Richard Cassidy commented on my UK Floods: The Crisis Deepens post yesterday, saying he saw a feature on BBC news yesterday which suggested that the Gulfstream had [temporarily??] shifted south of the UK.
Thanks for your comment Richard. I found a BBC News Online report that talks about the shifting of the Jet Stream high in the atmosphere, rather than the Gulf Stream in the waters of the North Atlantic:
[Met Office weatherman Dan Corbett] said a broad band of low pressure had been sitting across the UK, pushing the jet stream – a ribbon of fast moving air in the upper atmosphere – further south than usual, keeping high pressure and settled weather away from the UK. “In a normal summer the jet stream is to the north of the UK. This allows the Azores high to build across the UK and bring settled and more typical summer weather for the UK,” said Mr Corbett.
In my post Defeat Global Warming? Just Think About It, I referred to the Gulf Stream, rather than the Jet Stream, and commented on the fact that recent measurements indicate it has been weakening as well as exhibiting a tendency to move further south than is usual. I don’t think the Gulf Stream has shifted so far south that it’s now below the UK — but for a while it did move a little further south than its normal course earlier this year (before moving north again) and weakened somewhat at the same time.
Personally, I believe the behaviour of the two streams must be interlinked, the position and strength of one influencing the location and activity of the other, while each in turn is further influenced by other related factors such as, for example, the salinity of the North Atlantic in the case of the Gulf Stream and, regarding the Jet Stream, the barometric pressure of adjacent air masses. I’m no meteorologist — but while we all know it’s a highly complex business, it seems logical to me to accept that these two great engines driving our climate must be intimately bound together.
In another previous post, Climate Change: Sunspots? Or Us? I referred to theories that seem to indicate a cooling, rather than a warming effect might be on the cards — at least in the northern hemisphere — in the near future. Now I’ve found two reports that robustly refute that idea.
Titled Gulf Stream Shift Removed From Scientific Forecasts, The Heat Is Online carries both reports on one web page. The first report is from Associated Press on 14th June 2007 — Dropping Ice Age scenario, researchers discard Gulf Stream catastrophe scenario:
TORSHAVN, Faeroe Islands: From the deck of a research ship moored in these gusty north Atlantic islands, workers are offloading three bright orange buoys whose sonar devices will help Bogi Hansen fill more gaps in an intriguing twist on climate change forecasts.
For the past year, the Faeroese scientist’s sonar has been pinging the Gulf Stream, the warm ocean current that has kept this subpolar archipelago unfrozen for centuries. His findings are of big interest because they contradict one of the most catastrophic predictions linked to global warming: that Arctic melting will strangle the Gulf Stream, thrusting Europe into a new Ice Age.
In fact, Hansen’s research and recent climate models raise a tantalizing possibility: Can the slight weakening of the Gulf Stream expected over the next century actually help to offset the effects of global warming in northern Europe?
Some scientists think so.
The second report, from the New York Times dated 15th May 2007, is headlined Scientists Back Off Theory of a Colder Europe in a Warming World and takes us to Oslo, where:
Mainstream climatologists who have feared that global warming could have the paradoxical effect of cooling northwestern Europe or even plunging it into a small ice age have stopped worrying about that particular disaster, although it retains a vivid hold on the public imagination.
The idea, which held climate theorists in its icy grip for years, was that the North Atlantic Current, an extension of the Gulf Stream that cuts northeast across the Atlantic Ocean to bathe the high latitudes of Europe with warmish equatorial water, could shut down in a greenhouse world.
Without that warm-water current, Americans on the Eastern Seaboard would most likely feel a chill, but the suffering would be greater in Europe, where major cities lie far to the north. Britain, northern France, the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway could in theory take on Arctic aspects that only a Greenlander could love, even as the rest of the world sweltered.
All that has now been removed from the forecast. Not only is northern Europe warming, but every major climate model produced by scientists worldwide in recent years has also shown that the warming will almost certainly continue.
My original concerns about a dramatic cooling event stemmed from having read The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. The film The Day After Tomorrow was based upon this book. In it, Bell and Strieber wrote:
By definition, a superstorm would involve an entire hemisphere. Its winds would reach extreme velocities, possibly in excess of two hundred miles an hour.
The storm would be triggered by a sudden increase in Arctic temperatures at the surface — exactly the kind of warm snap that could occur at any time during the global warming scenario presently unfolding — combined with extreme cold aloft. This warm flow of air would heat an ocean surface already affected by a loss of salinity due to polar melt and runoff from Greenland. The lack of salt in the water would cause it to take on heat quickly. At that point, the flow of the North Atlantic current would suddenly change, dropping south.
When this happened, the ultracold air trapped above the arctic by the warm airflow would slide southward, with a violent outcome.
The storm would last until the ocean cooled enough for the flow of the current to be reestablished. Before that happened, there would be a massive blizzard or series of blizzards that would dump billions of tons of snow across a fifth of the earth’s surface. When the sun finally did return, the huge increase in the earth’s albedo, or reflectivity, caused by the snow, would cause a dramatic drop in temperature. Whether the ice would melt or persist across the next summer would depend on its depth. If it persisted, a cooling trend of some duration would result. There would even be a possibility that a new ice age would begin …
The evidence that long-term changes in climate do take place is irrefutable. The ice keeps coming back, and we aren’t sure why. But something acts as the trigger, and we know that this event is a sudden one.
– The Coming Global Superstorm, Whitley Strieber & Art Bell, Pocket Books, 2000, pp/102-103
Bell and Strieber’s theory was pretty much rubbished by the scientific community when the book was first published — chiefly because neither author is qualified in the fields in which the chief critics specialize, but also because no climatologist could stomach supporting a theory that proposes a world-changing event occurring over such a short space of time (the book suggests that the superstorm itself might last only a few weeks, resulting in an ice age possibly lasting thousands of years in duration). The film, though popular with the public, received more criticism from the scientific community in general, mainly because it was felt it took further liberties by compressing the superstorm time-scale into a matter of days and vastly exaggerating the ferocity of the meteorological events portrayed.
While I don’t know much about Art Bell’s bona fides, I feel I do know where Whitley Strieber’s coming from. Yes, he’s from way out in left field, as Americans would say — but I’ve read every one of his books and have been a regular visitor to his Unknown Country web site for over a decade. I believe him to be an honest reporter of the unusual and bizarre “visitor” events that have plagued him through much of his life, and that this lends veracity to the information he claims has been imparted to him regarding the perilous state of our planet. It’s upon this information that Whitley has built his theories and commentaries about climate change. Despite the two items reported above, I’ve seen nothing yet that convinces me I can now safely ignore his superstorm theory. Scientific history is littered with theories that were considered heretical nonsense at first, then cautiously applauded as ground-breaking and finally accepted, the process often taking decades.
The Superstorm theory states that the world will experience precisely the kind of warming events we’re seeing now, accompanied by increasingly violent and extreme weather events prior to a sudden change in climate from warm to cold, like a giant elastic band being stretched and stretched until it suddenly snaps back into shape with a ferocious release of pent-up energy. That the planet has experienced sudden, catastrophic changes like this in the past is not in dispute, even amongst the experts. What people can’t agree about is how those past changes were set in train and whether we’re seeing similar tell-tale markers here in the present.
Please be sure to read the comments for this post for further discussion of the Superstorm Theory.
Read my Climate Change posts in chronological order by using the Climate Change Log.
I have heard a few times that the Gulf Stream was/could move, if it does look to Moscow for our weather as they are on a similar axis to us. So very long heavy snow and cold winters -30 and hot summers. It would also change the fish we get in our seas completely, our farming and way of life.
Normal farming, wouldn’t be possible from November to March/April as the grownd would be frozen, a lot of our live stock farming would also have to change,no more free range for 4/6 months of the year and the vineyards would cease.
The Seas, We would loose a lot of the resident parlargic fish as they like the warmer waters and as most of the cod and cold water North Sea fish have now been fished out our seas would be nearlly barron.
Weather goes in cycles, 1947 saw massive floods in the UK, 60 years ago, since then we have more than trebled our population so it will effect more people also News is covered in a more indepth way ….2 2 really. I am sure global warming has made an impact on our weather over the last 200 years and the industrial revolution. It needs a longer term out look really, one bad summer doesn’t mean doom and gloom, we had a quite nice summer last year and a few days of snow last winter. I remember a heck of a lot more snow in the 1970′s when I was at school…. We also had an amazing summer in 1976 then followed by massive floods.
It would need a heck of a lot of facts and figures to persuade me the Gulf and Jet streams are moving, the Gulf Steam has been with us since the last Ice Age. The Jet sream is constanly moving the nature of hot and cold will do that, if it gets hot in Southern Europe it causes a hole in the air where heat rises and cold rushes down hence the wind and that is causes and effect. Guess what they are having a massive heatwave in southern europe at the moment…. I personally believe it is just cause and effect of that heatwave. I am happy to be proved wrong though Bob.
Bob, I also feel the internet can have a downside; A lot of people put up a lot of things. My pet hate is Wikipedia, any idiot can put up any facts and figures and say they are true, and that goes for any website….Prof. I Bullshit. sticks up a site called… Chocolate the true facts…and states that through his research he can prove that the amount of chocolate eaten in the UK is proportionate to the amount of earth quakes and volcanic eruptions in the southern hemisphere. There is no one to stop him and I am sure his facts and figures would make interesting readings…but all pants really.
I don’t know the answers Bob, I am open, but I am also a cynical sod as well and never take anything like this at face value, people will make facts and figures say what they want them too. We have an action group started here called SCRAM, they are against mobile phone masts as they say they cause Cancer…they may well do I don’t know, but neither do they. Yesterday a research body clearly stated they don’t. Looking at their facts and figures it seem they don’t, it is all psychosomatic that people who say they are sensitive to the EMF off these masts, as they proved with double blind tests they couldn’t tell when they were on or off. There has been a cluster of people next to a massive mast that have got cancer since this mast went up a few years so SCRAM was formed, they even pulled the mast down…. who is right, quite possible both?
Well, Dave, that entry of mine certainly got you going!
In the interests of accuracy, I have to reiterate that while the atmospheric Jet Stream certainly does shift about from time to time (it’s shifted south right now), I’ve read nothing about the oceanic Gulf Stream substantially moving from its present course. I’ve come across lots of items that discuss the evidence for the weakening — and even cessation — of the Gulf Stream flow in the past and what the consequences were back then (based on other hard evidence), as well as what might happen to the present climate if such a slowing-down or cessation were to occur again.
As recently as 9th July 2007, for example, Liverpool University published a paper showing how “Fossilized midges have helped scientists at the University of Liverpool identify two episodes of abrupt climate change that suggest the UK climate is not as stable as previously thought”:
The episodes were discovered at a study in Hawes Water in Northern Lancashire, where the team used a unique combination of isotope studies and analysis of fossilised midge heads. Together they indicated where the climate shifts occurred and the temperature of the atmosphere at the time. The first shift detected occurred around 9,000 years ago and the second around 8,000 years ago. Evidence suggests that these shifts were due to changes in the Gulf Stream, which normally keeps the UK climate warm and wet. During each shift the North West climate cooled with an average summer temperature fall of 1.6 degrees –- approximately three times the amount of temperature change currently attributed to global warming. Scientists found that the atmosphere cooled rapidly and cold periods lasted up to 50 years for one event and 150 years for the other. The detection of these events will allow experts to understand more clearly what can happen when the climate system is disturbed.
Professor Jim Marshall, from the University’s Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, explains: “At Hawes Water mud has been deposited continuously without any gaps, which allows us to measure an accurate timeline of events. We have monitored the modern environment of the lake for the past eight years and this has shown us how to read the past climate record from the ancient mud in the lake. Isotope analysis helped us identify the episodes of climate change. We then used fossilised heads of non-biting midges, which are preserved in every spoonful of mud. They tell us the temperature at the time the mud was deposited. We compare the population of midge heads in each sediment sample with the population of midges in Scandinavian lakes, which span a wide range of modern day temperatures.”
The team found the two abrupt climate changes correlated directly with two episodes of sharp climate deterioration in areas such as Greenland, suggesting that a change in the Gulf Stream had occurred.
Professor Marshall added: “People are worried that the melting of the polar ice caps could result in a slow-down of what we call the ‘Atlantic Conveyer’. This is where cold water that sinks in the far north is replaced by warmer water from the tropics in its circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean. A number of studies suggest that the conveyer may be unstable and may be able to slow down or switch off completely, making our climate suddenly colder. Our study provides evidence that the two climate shifts we detected were directly linked to a slow-down in the conveyer.”
Scientists believe that this new data will provide a unique test for the global climate computer models that are being used to simulate future climate change.
Few scientists and climatologists dispute that the Gulf Stream — or, more accurately, a component of it called the North Atlantic Circulation or the Atlantic Conveyor mentioned in the above paper, the bit which flows close to Britain and Europe — has slowed or even stopped in the past; neither do they dispute that there is some evidence suggesting it’s slowing down right now. What scientists have recently dismissed is the idea that any cooling of the northern hemisphere caused by such a slow-down will, in our current Industrial Age, have any effect at all — they feel it’s more than likely to be offset by the global warming that’s apparently being caused by our own actions, which is a situation the planet has not experienced during previous slow-downs.
The Bell/Strieber Superstorm theory, to which I referred in my post, posits a sudden, catastrophic cooling of the planet caused by massive snowfalls in the Northern Hemisphere lasting perhaps as long as several weeks, after which the vast resultant snowfields covering Canada, North America and Europe would reflect back into space much of the Sun’s energy that would otherwise, if those snowfields weren’t there, be warming the planet. The ferocity and duration of the superstorm would depend to some degree upon what would be the then-current strength of the Gulf Stream and the then-current strength and position of the Jet Stream, because the behaviour of these two mechanisms help determine meteorological conditions high in the upper atmosphere. If the conditions are just right and super-sized storm cells form, then the process of sudden change, say Bell and Strieber, would begin. The effects of such a superstorm would over-ride any “Global Warming”-type climate changes already underway and result in a completely different — and an unforecast, unplanned for — scenario.
It’s on this point that the climatologists part company with Bell and Strieber: they say because the authors are not “experts” like them, their theory is based on a flawed understanding of meteorological physics and laws and that it could simply never happen. Therefore, their suggestions have never been included in the various climatological computer models that have been developed over the years. It’s just ignored.
It’s true to say that “the internet can have a downside; A lot of people put up a lot of things.” Of course they do. That’s why intelligent people should weigh up claims they come across on the internet, use their common sense by applying Occam’s Razor, search for corroborative evidence and then come to a determination as to the veracity of the original claim.
In the case of Strieber’s superstorm theory, it’s not something he made up on the spur of the moment. It’s based on information gathered during many years of research. Some of it comes from what might be termed “unconventional” sources, and this fact alone makes him a soft target and provides his critics with the ammunition they use to shoot him down. But while the mechanics of the superstorm theory itself may be difficult or impossible for some to accept right now, the hard evidence that something resulting in strikingly similar consequences predicted by the theory has definitely occurred in the Earth’s past — quite possibly more than once — is mounting in the geological, archaeological and biological records, and Strieber’s web site regularly posts items from authoritative sources, such as universities and government funded research bodies, to back up his claims.
I hope he’s wrong. As a matter of fact, so does he. But if there’s any chance a superstorm event might be on the cards for us, then I think the world should at least be made aware that such a scenario is a possibility and I’m happy to continue discussing it here, teasing out the evidence to see what fits and what doesn’t.
I watched a programme on Discovery about the last Ice Age it was claimed that ended when the gulf stream arrived… so some 25,000 years ago I think it said? I am sure it has weakend and been a whole lot stronger over that time since then. I don’t know how right that programme was but it sort of makes some sense.
I am sure with global warming and the icecaps melting it is making some sort of effect on the flow which will have an adverse effect Good Old Blighty, how soon? who knows…
Just a thought, buy a house in Brum, Sutton Coldfield on Sea will be the in place so I hear
this article is rather professional,so i am not quite sure about
some terms.
i still learn a lot from what are you are talking about.
besides, with the help of your blog, England could be closer to me.
Hi westbank,
I am very pleased that you are still coming to my site all the way from China. It is always good to know you are interested in reading my posts
Well, this was 2007 and it’s now 2011 – Somerset Bob, how do you currently feel about the likelihood of a superstorm scenario unfolding soonish? I too respect Whitley for his apparent honesty and intellectual curiosity and I’m an intermittent visitor to Unknown Country. I noticed that he posted a pretty gloomy blog post recently about methane outgassing, looming catastrophe, etc. I hadn’t previously paid much attention to anything to do with Day After Tomorrow, but I’m intrigued now.
Hi Rainbow Meow — apologies for the long delay before replying!
I’m still convinced that a superstorm sceanario lies somewhere in our future — maybe our near-future. It feels like our weather patterns are definitely, if subtly, changing. The Jet Stream is behaving erratically; the northern ice cap’s long-term survival as a year-long entity seems to be consistently on the wane; the Sun’s activity appears to be winding down to a particularly quiet period over the next decade (which could have dramatic consequences here on Earth); methane outgassing is on the increase — all in all, these are not positive indicators for a stable climate.