NASA found a way to track ocean currents from space. What they saw is troubling.

Posted by $ nickursis 9 years, 6 months ago to Science
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I remember about 15-20 years ago, a Japanese researcher used one of the first supercomputers to model what he called the North Atlantic Conveyor Belt" to support a theroy he developed that showed if it breaks, that an ice age will result. Seems like he now has some better methods to measure it and may be right. His models actually predicted that with the melting of large ice sheets, the freshwater would disrupt the belt, and that results in increased warming in the tropics and rapid cooling in the upper portions.


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  • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, something happened in the past.
    For example, previous "scientific" theories have been "proven" false and others "proven" true.
    The more we learn, the more questions we have, if we are rational thinkers.
    The continents have moved. Volcanoes and earthquakes have reshaped the surface of the earth. Man has built some structures on the surface, but will they be recognizable in 100,000 years? Will humans be recognizable?
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I completely agree with you, that heads into the whole "man screwed the climate" issue, which I do not believe has ever been proven yet. I believe there is climate change in progress, but that it has always been in progress one way or the other, there are too many variables to ever expect rock stability in it. Even if it were fact, the impact will take hundreds of years to be apparent, not less than a hundred.
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  • Posted by stargeezer 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What is voodoo is that puny little man can affect this flow. It's all a natural cycle and in a few years or centuries, things will swing the other way. In the meantime people who worship the earth gods tell me how to build a car/truck, how to generate power, how to "clean" my lawn mower must be and what gas to run in my truck - all based on fallacious scientific data.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That is what it is, a tool for gathering data. The mess starts when groups try to use the data for their own ends. I just accept the fact they see a cold spot, where there wasn't one detected before. It may well be there has been one all along, or it is just a natural variation. But a nice addition to the data gathering capability.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Zen, depends on whether you think you can get honest data:
    http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/s...
    65.91 mm rate of 3.22 mm/yr
    http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_...
    Austrailia: approx 3mm/yr and total change of 120 meters (approx 360 feet) over the last 140,000 years.
    http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
    3.3 mm/yr.
    Younaguni may have been submerged, but no one can prove it didn't just fall off, but there are several underwater sites between england and northern Europe proven to have been above water some time ago, and they have found buildings and remains in them. There is an underwater city Robert Ballard investigated off Turkey. There is enough evidence to show sea level can, and does, change based on different climate conditions. Is this a result of climate change (the kind we get handed to us)? Who knows, not enough evidence to prove it. But it does happen.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Actually, the conveyor belt theory predates the climate change people by 10-15 years. The scientist who originally proposed it spent 10 years or so trying to prove it could happen and finally was able to model it when the first supercomputers became available. I would trust his data long before even thinking of listening to the Gore gang. And he never pandered his position for money, unlike the herd of "save the world give me money" people.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I do not agree that the ocean conveyor belt theory is "voodoo". I spent 10 years poking around in the Pacific as a submarine sonarman, and I also had the only special oceanographic data gathering suite ever put on a submarine in the Pacific.I can say the theory is sound, large fresh water amounts will cause a change in the way the deep currents move, and could (emphasis on could) cause a breakdown in the gulfstream current. The gulfstream is the only thing that makes the north of Europe temperate in winter. If it stops, it will start getting really chilly in some parts.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Well, the point is, there is constant technology changes that allow for new ways to gather information. I am searching for the Japanese oceanographers name to try to find his presentation, he did a very good job of defining the theory and explaining what would happen, and with all the hoopla over Greenlands Ice melt in the last couple years, I was waiting for the other shoe to fall, if he was correct.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 9 years, 5 months ago
    This article doesn't read very well. Dubious... It smacks of, "We have this new technology that has given us scary results compared to the benchmark (there can't be a benchmark because this is a new technology)."

    At times like these, when their fat little comforts are threatened, you may be sure that science is the first thing men will sacrifice. - Ayn Rand
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  • Posted by stargeezer 9 years, 5 months ago
    The voodoo "science" has cost the US trillions of dollars. Cost the US auto buyer about $10-15,000 on each new car or truck they buy. Has cost us the freedom to explore and take advantage of our own natural resources and sacrificed it all on the alter of mother earth worship disguised as (false) science and liberal politics aimed at low information types (Hollywood???).

    Pull your heads out people.
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  • Posted by broskjold22 9 years, 5 months ago
    I was "educated" when working for an oil and gas corporation about this "affect". The Gulf Stream current fails and then Northern Europe is attacked by Frost Giants, so to speak. The truth is, all the climate change proponents peddle and dip into is fear and anxiety. That is the result of holding contradictory ideas and/or ideas that conflict with reality.

    From what I understand the thought is that Northern Europe would go into a mini ice age while latitudes south of the Gulf Stream could expect global warming effects. Then this was called climate change because of the obvious contradiction. Now we have people thinking any "extreme" weather is the result of this climate change scenario. Thor is pissed and going to smash us with thunder and lightning until we stop driving cars is their essential argument. Battle the frost giants... buy a Prius. Are we still primitive enough to believe that the thunder god is pissed and we have to appease him with our slick, oily sacrifice?

    Climate change is paganism reborn, and not the beneficial, philosophical, Aristotelian rational kind. It's the fearful, warmongering, Attila and witch doctor politics.
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 6 months ago
    Wasn't it just last week that two big announcements were made: One that instead of Antartica losing ice, it has increased ice, and the second that actual sea level rise has been essentially zero.

    Wait, there was more: The Greenland Ice Sheet reduction of whiteness and reflection measured over the last few years is actually the result of space dirt accumulation on the lens of the satellite device used to measure it.
    Nonsense and BS.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 6 months ago
    Only the Post or the NYT would call this new tool troubling.
    They are manipulating opinion using a misleading title for an article about an observation tool that has not discovered anything of consequence.
    Bravo to the scientists who use this tool for unbiased scientific discovery.
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