Glbl Wrmg Climate Catastrophe Depicted In 'The Day After Tomorrow' Could Happen, Study Warns

[Heliobas Disciple]

http://www.natureworldnews.com/arti...-depicted-day-tomorrow-happen-study-warns.htm
(fair use applies)

Climate Catastrophe Depicted In 'The Day After Tomorrow' Could Happen, Study Warns
By Samantha Mathewson
Oct 11, 2015 11:13 PM EDT

Ice and snow cover New York City in a future ice age brought on by catastropic climate events, in the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow.

In the film, climate warming caused an abrupt collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). This led to catastrophic events such as New York being flooded, the northern hemisphere freezing and tornadoes destroying Los Angeles. While the abrupt collapse of the AMOC in the movie has long been criticized, researchers believe it could happen, acording to a new study.

For their study, researchers used the German climate model ECHAM at the Max-Planck Institute in Hamburg. They discovered that if global warming and a collapse of the AMOC occur simultaneously, the Earth will cool for a period of 20 years, according to a news release. After this time, global warming continues as if the AMOC never collapsed, and the global average temperature would offset about 0.8 degrees Celsius.

"The planet earth recovers from the AMOC collapse in about 40 years when global warming continues at present-day rates, but near the eastern boundary of the North Atlantic (including the British Isles) it takes more than a century before temperature is back to normal," Professor Sybren Drijfhout, from Ocean and Earth Science Department at the University of Southampton, said in the release.

A collapse of the AMOC is associated with atmospheric cooling and heat flow from the atmosphere into the ocean, according to the recent study. This climate "hiatus" has been witnessed over the course of the last 15 years.

"When a similar cooling or reduced heating is caused by volcanic eruptions or decreasing greenhouse emissions the heat flow is reversed, from the ocean into the atmosphere," Professor Drijfhout exaplained in the release. "A similar reversal of energy flow is also visible at the top of the atmosphere. These very different fingerprints in energy flow between atmospheric radiative forcing and internal ocean circulation processes make it possible to attribute the cause of a climate hiatus period."

The researchers noted that the recent period of very weak warming cannot be attributed to one single cause, but instead a combination of factors including large-scale shifting westerlies in the Southern Ocean, which were brought on by El Niño patterns.

"It can be excluded, however, that this hiatus period was solely caused by changes in atmospheric forcing, either due to volcanic eruptions, more aerosols emissions in Asia, or reduced greenhouse gas emissions," Professor Drijfhout said in a statement. "Changes in ocean circulation must have played an important role. Natural variations have counteracted the greenhouse effect for a decade or so, but I expect this period is over now.

Their study was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.


FOR MORE INFO SEE THE SITE OF THE STUDY:

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2015/10/could-the-day-after-tomorrow-happen.page

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep14877

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

The movie was based on the book by Whitley Strieber and Art Bell. Looks like they really were on to something after all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Global_Superstorm
(fair use applies)

The Coming Global Superstorm (ISBN 0-671-04190-8) is a 1999 book by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber which predicts that global warming might produce sudden and catastrophic climatic effects.

The book posits the following theory:

First, that the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic drift generate a cordon of warm water around the North Pole, which in turn holds in a frozen mass of Arctic air.

Second, that if the North Atlantic drift were to shut down, that barrier would fail, releasing a flood of frozen air into the Northern Hemisphere, causing a sudden and drastic temperature shift.

The book discusses a possible cause of the failure of the Gulf Stream: that the melting of the polar ice caps could drastically affect the salinity of the North Atlantic drift by dumping a large quantity of freshwater into the world's oceans.

Bell and Strieber explain the possibility that such current destabilizations have occurred before, as well as seemingly impossible engineering feats by the ancients. Among their examples is the island city of Nan Madol; the book claims that its construction, with exacting tolerances and extremely heavy basalt materials, necessitates a high degree of technical competency. Since no such society exists in the modern record - or, even, in legend - this society must have been destroyed by dramatic means. While other explanations beside a global meteorological event are possible, a correlating evidence set is presented in the woolly mammoth. Strieber and Bell assert that, since mammoths have been found preserved with food still in their mouths and undigested in their stomachs, these animals must have been killed quickly, in otherwise normal conditions, and been preserved so well by quick freezing. This is taken as evidence of a rapid onset of a global blizzard or similar event.

Interspersed with the analytical parts of the book are a series of interlinked short fictional scenarios, written in italics, describing what might transpire today, should a destabilization of the North Atlantic Current occur. These fictional accounts of "current events" as the meteorological situation deteriorates provided background and inspiration for the 2004 science-fiction film The Day After Tomorrow and, indeed, some events from the book are portrayed in the film with little modification.

 

[packyderms_wife]

While other explanations beside a global meteorological event are possible, a correlating evidence set is presented in the woolly mammoth. Strieber and Bell assert that, since mammoths have been found preserved with food still in their mouths and undigested in their stomachs, these animals must have been killed quickly, in otherwise normal conditions, and been preserved so well by quick freezing. This is taken as evidence of a rapid onset of a global blizzard or similar event.

We've discussed this before, IIRC over at TOL in the root cellar, posted some documentation to go with the comments but it's believed that a brief collapse or puncture occurred in the atmosphere causing everything to flash freeze instantaneously.

 

[Publius]

Ok; But the one thing we still do not have from them! Hard copy proof of their so called settled science. I want the rest of the scientific world to have a look at it and allow for common sense wisdom to speak its mind on the matter.

 

[FarmerJohn]

Common sense fails us sometimes.

A long series of year-to-year up-creeps in CO2 content of the atmosphere, especially when it has to be expressed in parts per million (ppm) seems laughably small in the grand scheme of things. Unfortunately, a small increase in the proportion an important gas can have a profound effect. The change in atmospheric content from a very low level to a slightly higher very low level has implications for how much long wave radiation is re-emitted.

The science on this was worked out more than a century ago. Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) was one who did the math. In 1896 he calculated the effect of a doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide to be an increase in surface temperatures of 5-6 degrees Celsius. Currently, we're at about 43% above preindustrial levels.

As slightly more of the sun's heat is retained, positive feedback loops come into effect. Methane, stored in permafrost and in the shallow waters of the arctic continental shelf starts bubbling up. Methane is also a greenhouse gas and makes it's own contribution to the retention of the sun's heat. These changes are tiny but accumulate over time.