On Dec 5, 2007 12:45 PM, Michael H. Collis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I was wondering if Peter, Ken, Kyle, or Kendall had a comment on it.  It is talking about how gradual global warming may bring about abrupt climate change by changing the thermocline circulation in the oceans,   The northern hemisphere, especially Europe and the northeastern part of North America, would be hit hard by never ending blizzards. and the southern part of North America would be hit by 5 or 6 category 5 hurricanes.
>
> http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=9986
>
> Comments, anyone?
>

As Deri points out the article is a bit dated. However, given that
it's mostly long term speculation I don't see any reason to consider
it for anything than that. Scientists do seem to agree that the
affects of ocean heating are poorly understood and that they are just
beginning to take off (they have a large lag behind surface temps).
I've used the term "inflection point" here before and that's the basic
premise behind some of the speculation; that there is a point of no
return after which the regular rules don't apply any more. Most
scientists don't seem to think that will happen in quite as of
dramatic fashion as portrayed here (and in the movies!); however there
may be years in which the extreme effects show up.  June snow storms
in Britain seem to be part of the regular worst case scenarios...  The
point that seems to be overlooked in the article, and in my book the
important thing to remember here, is that, if mankind continues to
dump green house gases into the atmosphere then the overall average
temperature of the earth will continue to rise. So even if you get
localized cooling from fluctuating ocean currents it seems unlikely
that it will be to a geographically large enough extent to reverse
large scale ice melts and increase surface albedo (and thus reduce any
significant amount of global warming), although as the article points
out it may mitigate the effects for certain  regions.

-- 
Peter Hunsberger

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