Dr. Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland is chief scientist for the Dark Snow Project, and was co-author of a recent paper on changing dynamics in the North Atlantic.
That paper, from last March, has gotten some more attention in the wake of the new, hotly debated paper by James Hansen which was published this week, describing potentially serious impacts on North Atlantic weather and storms from continued melting of Greenland ice, as well as catastrophic sea level impacts sooner than most scientists expect.
For a view of what Dr. Box is talking about, see map below. The stubborn blue “cold spot” in the north atlantic, while most of the global ocean surface is warming – has been the subject of increasing discussion and study over the last few years.
Below you can see how rapidly this cold spot has been growing at the surface of the North Atlantic:
http://i.picasion.com/pic81/6957e2380f69a4ffa40b67879f81e5d2.gif
Reblogged this on A Green Road Daily News.
I didn’t know that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation “acts as a wall” that prevents freshwater pool off the southern tip of Greenland from draining southward. Another piece in the puzzle. This is a factor in the growth of the pool and its ability to act as a lid on the warmer, saline water below and the heat that melts the ice shelves and ice sheets with subsurface groundlines from below. This is the central, amplifying feedback identified by Hansen et al. (2016) that results in the further accumulation of freshwater. Although there are others, such as that due to the reduction in poleward oceanic heat transport and resulting ability of the planet to cool off where the insulating greenhouse effect of water vapor is weakest.
Moreover, specifically tying the extreme weather that Europe has recently been experiencing to the pool, with the implication that this is evidence for the strengthening of storms that can only get worse and will get far worse if the positive feedback is fueled long enough becomes a self-sustaining process subject to exponential growth. Reminds me of cancer, where the initial mutations may be due to environmental conditions like the exposure to radiation, chemicals or biological agents, but with enough mutations you have the breakdown of genetic error-correcting processes that would otherwise prevent other mutations – which occur all the time but are normally removed – from becoming established.
I am not sure that anyone has made the connections made in this video quite so clear before. Although they probably have been made that clearly before – here – and I simply missed it. Regardless, Jason Box hits on some major points within the brief span of a little over two minutes, and I believe I understand things a bit more clearly now.
You and Jason have my personal appreciation for the insight.
have to add that everything about the Hansen paper, and Jason’s comments above, are very hotly contested right now, and I suspect some kind of update on this debate is in order.
Personally, I would have to place myself somewhere between the measured skepticism of Michael Mann and the measured appreciation of synthesis of David Archer. At this point. I will be looking forward to what you find.
It spreads out a tad of the Greenland ice so that the Sun can heat it efficiently (Sun can’t heat ice deep beneath the surface). I see that Jason is blaming Canada, been watching The Simpsons.
As somewhat of a weather geek, I regularly look at the Earth wind map here:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-42.45,44.55,766
I don’t know how typical it is, but for months now it seems that there has been what looks like a strong stationary and powerful low pressure cell off the southeast coast of Greenland–or rather, a series of lows that sometimes move around and disperse and then quickly reform in the same area. You can often see the animated winds pulled from the North Atlantic just blasting the coasts of England and Ireland. Of course, this is a totally unscientific observation, but it would seem to be a clear consequence of the cold spot.
Thanks to Peter for his clarifying videos and to the dedicated scientists involved. I try to spread the word.
Icelandic semipermanent low in wrong place, temporarily creating a dipole & causing Wales et al to get drenched.
Best,
D