Way TRICKIER than you ever imagined
I know something you will not hear from Al Gore. You will not hear it from Barack Obama. You will not hear it from the U.N. Or from James Hansen at NASA.
This confirms suspicions that have been around since the 1990’s, and likely plays havoc with global models of climate change.
That line is taken from a recent study on “global thermoline circulation”
The study invalidates a 50 year old model of how large thermal currents move in the world’s oceans. BTW – most global climate models rest on that 50 year old, now invalidated, model.
Yikes! You mean the science isn’t settled?
No it isn’t.
H/T: Dad who I may disagree with mostly, but it takes a big man to send me fodder for an argument he probably won’t agree with.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Although the details of the return circulation may still be unclear, what is clear is that the water must somehow complete the circulation. If it does not, the Gulf Stream, which is a large climate determinant for the North Atlantic, will change dramatically to produce the threatened effect. From a scientific perspective, perhaps the details of the return flow are not even critical in establishing the approximate predictions of the Gulf Stream dynamics. We scientists don’t accept the nitpicker’s idea that if you don’t know everything you don’t know anything.
BTW. Whether I agree with your argument is irrelevant to the idea of getting the best science. Although scientists may have political leanings as humans, they are first and foremost scientists whose purpose is to discover how nature works. They do that by hypothesizing how nature works and then seeking the data and mechanisms that either confirm or refute the hypothesis. Slowly the picture of nature has emerged over the centuries with the active opposition of priests and politicians with vested interests in their own truths. The scientists use the best tools available although the supply of those tools is usually determined by government support of science. Modern science advances much faster than at any time in the past because the public supports large funding for scientific exploration. The scientific method is well established and any scientist that deviates from the method will not be recognized by the scientific community. We let politicians and pundits speculate as they will in favor of their opinions, but we demand scientific truth as best we can discover it. Unhappily, old habits die hard, and today’s climate scientists are getting a taste of what Galileo got in advocating an inconvenient truth.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
You think the scientists in this area are not subject to the same human whims and pitfalls the rest of us are. That is wrong. This field, and physics, have a heterodoxy as strong as any religion.