Climate Letter #446

Great new research involving many related phenomena in the North Atlantic region.  It’s all keyed to AMOC, which is the normal graveyard of the Gulf Stream.  AMOC is created when very cold and salty surface water sinks to the bottom of the ocean and from there heads south.  The rate of downward drop can speed up or slow down, depending on how cold and salty the surface water has become, and that can vary for several reasons.  The resulting effective speed rate then has much control over the entire circulation pattern, which has global extent, and includes the movement of the Gulf Stream.  When the water sinkage slows down a “traffic jam” is created , blocking the momentum of the Gulf Stream, some of which must then be redirected.  Air temperatures all over the region are affected.  This post will help to clarify your understanding of how it all works, which is full of fascinating complications.

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Now open the Climate Reanalyzer at http://cci-reanalyzer.org/DailySummary/# and click on Sea Surface T Anomaly, for a current snapshot.  Much of the North Atlantic surface water is seen to be well below the average baseline temperature of 1971-2000, while to the immediate south the anomaly is just the opposite.  That tells me that a good part of the Gulf Stream, instead of entering the North Atlantic in the way it did before, is now being redirected across the ocean at a lower latitude, making that surface area warmer than before.  Nearby mainland temperatures are likewise affected.

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Highlights from the new “State of the Climate in 2014” report.  It was definitely the hottest year that’s been recorded, and the connection to greenhouse gas is demonstrated.  “It’s the lower atmosphere that’s warming, not the upper atmosphere, he points out — just as the total of greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere continues to increase. That’s not a coincidence.”

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From another source, added emphasis given to another important new record observed by the State of the Climate report:   Warming of the oceans because of too much CO2 in the air is unstoppable.  This is because CO2 lingers in the atmosphere for centuries, producing extra heat at the Earth’s surface, part of which finds it way down to where it can mix with cooler deep ocean water.  This conclusion can only reinforce what we learned not too long ago about how the melting of a substantial amount of Antarctic glacial ice is unstoppable because of the way it is being attacked from below by ocean currents that have gotten warmer.