Posted on 12/07/2007 3:55:53 PM PST by blam
Ancient flood brought Gulf Stream to a halt
19:00 06 December 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Fred Pearce
It was the biggest climate event of the last 10,000 years and caused the most dramatic change in the weather since humans began farming. And it may yet hold important lessons about climate change in the 21st century.
Just over 8000 years ago, a huge glacial lake in Canada burst, and an estimated 100,000 cubic kilometres of fresh water rushed into the North Atlantic. Researchers now say they know for sure that this catastrophic event shut down the Gulf Stream and cooled parts of the northern hemisphere by several degrees for more than a hundred years.
They say the findings show modelling studies are right to suggest that something similar could happen with equal abruptness as the planet warms under human influence. The film The Day After Tomorrow, which portrays such a scenario, may have exaggerated but not by much.
Lake Agassiz was a giant lake that formed at the end of the last ice age as the huge Laurentide ice sheet melted (see a simulation of the process). The lake occupied most of the modern-day Canadian Midwest between the Hudson Bay and the US border.
Freshwater flood
Climate historians have previously established that the lake burst suddenly, emptying down the Hudson Strait and into the Labrador Sea west of Greenland.
This is very close to a key point in the global ocean circulation system, where Atlantic water brought north on the Gulf Stream freezes, and dense, saline, leftover water plunges to the ocean floor.
Investigators have speculated that the huge slug of water from the emptying lake could have refreshed the ocean water so much that this plunging ceased,
(Excerpt) Read more at environment.newscientist.com ...
Heck no!! You know the paperwork that’s involved in that job? And forget about vacation time!
Hey, saving humanity should be its own reward. ;’)
Yeah, it should be.
You’re more organized. You do it.
I’ll stand back, over here, and critique your efforts. I’m much better at that than I am at doing anything that might actually or accidentally be useful.
You stole my idea!
Muahahaha!
I do have a good blend of both claim jumper and cattle rustler in my family heritage. Gotta go with my strengths.
The Atlanteans, of course! Our Beloved Mother Earth, Gaea revolted against human technological advances. What's more, the global warming back then was caused by Bush's 176th great-grandfather!!!
Because they were suddenly struck deaf and dumb; and stupid. They don't have to explain a thing, since their agenda was to frighten and ultimately to control.
Besides, now it's "climate change", so you can stop flaunting your knowlege superiority.
Even notice that the cost of "global warming" is advancing 50 times as fast as verifiable facts are being generated? I'm referring, of course, to the anthropogenic factor, as well as any demonstrable theory that the combined resources of the entire earth would have any significant effect on million-years-old natural processes.
REGARDLESS of the change in temperatures from “global warming” (which appears to have peaked anyway at 1/2 of one degree) there is simply no Ice Age glaciers covering tens of millions of acres across mid-America.
So NONE can melt and thus the Gulf Stream simply cannot stop. Now, nor in the future. It CANNOT happen - regardless of who is predicting it will happen for financial gain.
Yes, it appears to have happened 8000 years ago. That it happened 8000 years ago is irrelevant to today’s political debates.
That temperatures in 1100 were warmer than they are today IS relevant, but that fact is (deliberately) NOT being reported by the AGW alarmists. That temperatures in 1600 were colder than they are today is relevant, but that fact ALSO is NOT being reported.
The absolute error - the unpardonable error that exposes this story as a fraudulent exaggeration - is PROJECTING the sudden flood by melting ICE AGE glaciers to a future melting of today’s glaciers, thereby creating a second flood and a second stopping of the Gulf Stream.
The Ice Age “lake” impounded by glacier dams simply are NOT present right now. There is NO WAY to have that much water released, nor that much melted. It CANNOT happen -> The Gulf Stream CANNOT stop again.
Never mind that we have seen only a 1/2 of one degree rise over 27 years - and that supposed global warming itself has “stopped” from 1997 though 2007: there has been NO rise in temperature for 10 of the past 36 years!
So, even assuming that temps rise again, sudden melting is irrelevant to today’s political discussions about raising taxes on the US to fund corrupt dictators in the UN and socialist Europe (er, Russia.)
Another point which is obvious, but rarely discussed: sea ice will not cause a rise in sea level. If an ice cube melts in your glass the water does not spill out over the rim and onto the table. Water weighs the same, frozen or liquid, and so displaces the same volume.
Melting Arctic sea ice may make possible regular sea trade via that age old dream, the North west passage. The more efficient transport could result in a smaller carbon footprint for ships traveling from Europe to Asia.
oh...- and I am a computer software engineer (I write software) I can program a model to make it give you any output you want it to have... so I laugh every time they site ‘computer models’
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