Global Warming Cited in Wind Shift

AP on Yahoo ^ | 5/3/06 | Malcolm Ritter - ap

[NormsRevenge]

NEW YORK - An important wind circulation pattern over the Pacific Ocean has begun to weaken because of global warming caused by human activity, something that could alter climate and the marine food chain in the region, new research suggests.

It's not clear what climate changes might arise in the area or possibly beyond, but the long-term effect might resemble some aspects of an El Nino event, a study author said.

El Ninos boost rainfall in the southern United States and western South America and bring dry weather or even drought to Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere in the western Pacific.

As for the Pacific food chain near the equator, the slowdown might reduce populations of tiny plants and animals up through the fish that eat them, because of reduced nutrition welling up from the deep, said the author, Gabriel Vecchi.

Vecchi, a visiting scientist at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lab in Princeton, N.J., and colleagues present their results in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

The slowdown was detected in shipboard and land-based data going back to the mid-1800s. It matches an effect predicted by computer climate simulations that trace global warming to a build-up of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, the researchers report. But simulations that consider only natural influences fail to produce the observed slowdown, Vecchi said.

So, it appears the slowdown is largely due to the man-made buildup of greenhouse gases, the researchers concluded. And the result lends more credibility to computer models that trace global warming to greenhouse gases, at least for their ability to forecast what will happen in the tropics, Vecchi said.

The study focused on what scientists call the Walker circulation, a huge wind pattern that covers almost half the circumference of Earth.

The pattern traces a huge loop. Trade winds blow across the Pacific from east to west. The air rises in the western Pacific and then returns eastward at an altitude of a few miles. Then it sinks back to the surface and starts the loop again.

The new study is based on barometric pressure readings, since differences in air pressure drive winds near the equator. Results suggest the average wind speed in the Walker circulation has weakened by about 3.5 percent since the mid-1800s. It has weakened faster since World War II than in the long-term trend since the mid-1800s, Vecchi said.

Computer simulations say the circulation might weaken another 10 percent by 2100, Vecchi said.

Dennis Hartmann, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, said the study makes a strong case that the Walker circulation has slowed. While such an effect had been predicted as a result of global warming, he said, "it's not been demonstrated before as clearly as they've done here."

___

On the Net:

http://www.nature.com/nature

[NormsRevenge]

Climate scientists identified a likely new victim of global warming on May 3, 2006, the vast looping system of air currents that fuels Pacific trade winds and climate from South America to Indonesia. This could mean more El Nino-like weather patterns in the United States, more rain in the western Pacific and less nourishment for marine life along the Equator and off the South American coast. This illustration shows Walker Circulation, this system of currents functions as a huge belt stretching across the tropical Pacific, with dry air moving eastward at high altitude from Asia to South America and moist air flowing westward along the ocean's surface, pushing the prevailing trade winds. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY REUTERS/Illustrations by Gabriel Vecchi/UCAR/Handout

[Kenny Bunkport]

Bunch of hot air.

[RightWhale]

The Tripod went out the same time as usual. If there were global warming it would be going out a week or two earlier, but it's not, so there isn't. QED

[NormsRevenge]

Hot Air?

Here ya go!!!

Former Vice President Al Gore makes talks to the media as he walks into a screening of the documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth' in Boston Tuesday, April 25, 2006. The film, directed by Davis Guggenheim, documents Gore's passionate quest to present the issue of global warming as 'our planetary emergency.' (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

[Dog Gone]

It's not clear what climate changes might arise in the area or possibly beyond, but the long-term effect might resemble some aspects of an El Nino event, a study author said.

El Ninos boost rainfall in the southern United States and western South America and bring dry weather or even drought to Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere in the western Pacific.

Sounds like it might make our deserts a little more suitable for farmland.

[NormsRevenge]

South Korean environmental activists wear costumes resembling a polar bear and U.S. President George W. Bush (R) as they perform during an Earth Day event in Seoul, April 23, 2006. The activists were protesting against U.S. policy towards global warming. REUTERS/You Sung-Ho

[redfish53]

ManBearPig!!! I'm Cereal!!!

[VegasCowboy]

I'm not as versed in this subject as many of you are, but doesn't the following statement imply a couple of things that are in no way certain? 1) Their simulations are 100% accurate, and 2) they fully understand the "natural influences" and have correctly modeled them?

The slowdown was detected in shipboard and land-based data going back to the mid-1800s. It matches an effect predicted by computer climate simulations that trace global warming to a build-up of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, the researchers report. But simulations that consider only natural influences fail to produce the observed slowdown, Vecchi said.

[NormsRevenge]

Inhabitants in the Canadian Arctic settlement of Resolute Bay, Nunavut arrive for church on a snowmobile April 9, 2006. Even in one of the remotest, coldest and most inhospitable parts of Canada's High Arctic, you cannot escape the signs of global warming. REUTERS/David Ljunggren/Files

[olezip]

Global warming has nothing to do with activity by man. Man made effects are zero. Climate change has been taking place for millions of years. It is caused primarily by the Sun's changing energy output, not to mention sunspot activity, our Molten Core, the Earth's Magnetic Field, the Moon, and the timing of the Solar activity, including our orbital relationship to the Sun.

The material presented is just more junk science equivalent to what we learned about when we read "Chicken Little."

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

Maybe if we sacrifice a virgin SUV once a month to the global warming gods, we can appease his displeasure with economic freedom and prosperity.

[Schatze]

An important wind circulation pattern over the Pacific Ocean ...

Must be a planeload of Democrats on their way to endorse the Kyoto Treaty.

[maine-iac7]

it could alter climate and the marine food chain in the region, new research suggests. It's not clear what climate changes might arise in the area or possibly beyond, but the long-term effect might resemble some

and it's possible they might be full of it, but it's not clear or certain. However, their rambling suggests they haven't a clue. the only thing certain is that they are politically motivated to gain power and rule the world, while lining their pockets. (I hear Billy boy Clintooone has been eying castles in Europe. A king does have need of one, you know...)

you wrote: Sounds like it might make our deserts a little more suitable for farmland.

I like that idea!

Heck, it was a lot warmer here in the north eastern US, Canada, (probably all of Northern US and Canada - we just don't have any records of it ) Greenland and northern Europe 600 (from at least 998 to 1350 AD) years ago - and some shorelines were a mile inland from where they are now. What on earth were those Vikings and tribes in Europe doing!

I say, if nature wants to warm up again - bring it on.

In fact, there are several credible scientific studies theorizing that the same conditions that brought on the last Little Ice Age are setting up again. Maybe the warm up and the cool down will balance one another. Maybe nature knows what she's doing.

[goodnesswins]

Gore was in Seattle yesterday.

[maine-iac7]

Maybe if we sacrifice a virgin SUV once a month to the global warming gods, we can appease his displeasure with economic freedom and prosperity.

There ya go!

Bet you could get a gazillion dollar grant to implement that

[Phsstpok]

You build a computer model to study global warming caused by man.

You plug in numbers and, amazingly, you discover global warming caused by man.

You plug in other numbers and, amazingly, you discover global warming caused by man.

You plug in random numbers and, shockingly, you discover global warming caused by man.

You plug in negative numbers and, suspiciously, you discover global warming caused by man.

You plug in still other numbers and you suddenly don't get global warming caused by man. You regroup and "fix" the numbers, plug them back in and, surprise, surprise, you get global warming caused by man.

You are now happy (because you just got another government grant to study global warming caused by man).

The phrase "grant whore" comes to mind. Fraud is another good one.

[truth_seeker]

"Sounds like it might make our deserts a little more suitable for farmland."

Then we can grow our own car gas and live more self-sufficient ecologically balanced lives?

[Schatze]

Gore was in Seattle yesterday.

Ah, that would explain it.

[Publius6961]

An important wind circulation pattern over the Pacific Ocean has begun to weaken because of global warming caused by human activity, something that could alter climate and the marine food chain in the region, new research suggests.

It is a serious error to begin a "factual" article by making aan assertion based on a "suggestion". Oxymoron is the kindest comment here, and I certainly won't waste time reading the remainder of the report.

There is something fascinating about [agenda] science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, Chapter XVII (Pg 209)

[Arizona Carolyn]

As long as it doesn't cool down -- we'll take the rain to fill our lakes after 8+ years of drought and a growing population boom from Kalifornia.

Seriously, what don't these people understand about climate shifts? Do they honestly expect, now that the earth is civilized (as opposed to populted by dinasours) that suddenly the earth would never change and would always be predictable? No more ice ages, or shifts in the poles, etc.???