Atlantic Ocean circulation nearing ‘devastating’ tipping point

Having your house go on fire or your car be hit by a careless driver are not exactly likely events either, but everyone takes out house and car insurance in case, and tries to prevent these disasters from happening.

Are the governments and citizens of all countries doing their best to act so as to prevent the most extreme results of the population explosion of humans and their profligate production of discarded plastic, greenhouse gasses and rubbish of all kinds? Or are they all saying "Some people think it is not going to happen, so we don't need to consider it and take suitable action." ?

How many of the authors of the above entries decrying our “overuse” of the planet’s resources are giving up their cars, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, fridges, freezers, dishwashers, gas boilers ….? Seriously deciding that from today you will simply stop owning and using them. Well, the buck stops here, so common just be true to your convictions and give them up right now. Without further discussion and hesitation.

One phenomenon, several phenomena. There is no such time as either 12 am or 12 pm. It's noon or midnight.

The term “scare mongering” or just crying wolf all the time…. can be over the top sometimes.

We’ve all experience the breakdown of normal weather patterns and hideous unnatural events. I am all too aware of how our planet is slowly crumbling. It IS scary… because sooner or later (whether in our lifetime or not) it will soon reach everyone’s backyard.

Call me a tree hugger, I don’t care. But there are things we can all do to keep staving off the inevitable.

Can we still save our turf, city, country, oceans, planet? That is the question. In some ways we have reached the tipping point. Just my opinion.

Elegran

They get research grants to research Katie, not to prove their pre-judged conclusions. Also they publish their methods and all the data they based their conclusions on, so any errors in analysis can be discovered by others in peer-reviewed journals.

It’s all very well publishing’s their conclusions in research papers but their dramatized conclusions are being published for money in newspapers and headlined as proven fact when it is just their predictions.

So it is the fault of the media who splash a sensational version of the conclusions, without checking their logic, not of the reputable scientists.

With all the warring going on and Amoc it is enough to make you want to never look at the news again . We have to stay as calm as possible as getting scared stiff won’t help us mentally and avoiding the news completely means we are ignorant of what’s going on . From what I read if the Gulf Stream stopped completely it would reduce our temperature by about 10-13 deg so maybe not as bad as it could be altho bad enough -brr I like to be warm . Just imagine places like Siberia tho ? Try to keep cheerful I suppose and it must be an in the background worry for younger generations.

JenniferEccles

These doom and gloom stories have been doing the rounds for several decades to my knowledge and probably longer.

I for one am extremely relieved that Rishi has signed further contracts for North sea oil and gas drilling.
He is trying to keep us as self sufficient as possible for as long as possible.

Of course if Starmer does get in all that will change.

The report quouted was relatively new.

Also news today about a group of polar bears that are being studied - can't find enough food becuase of the melting ice. They eat seals and there isnot enough ice for htem to hunt from.

Katie59

Elegran

They get research grants to research Katie, not to prove their pre-judged conclusions. Also they publish their methods and all the data they based their conclusions on, so any errors in analysis can be discovered by others in peer-reviewed journals.

It’s all very well publishing’s their conclusions in research papers but their dramatized conclusions are being published for money in newspapers and headlined as proven fact when it is just their predictions.

We don't all read scientific docs but we do read papers!

The scientists who did the research (good or bad) don't get any money from the media - that goes to the journalists with no knowledge of how to differentiate a good professional study from a load of student bosh cobbled together as a project in the last few days before the end of term, using their pals as the source of the data and their imagination as the analysis.

Well even scientists and other very clever folk can’t agree on this topic. There’s little I can do about it anyway so I’m not going to worry about it.

The Guardian, the BBC and many other Establishment sources are more than capable of scaremongering, I believe, for there are vested interests everywhere and 'Green' tech makes money, we are easier to control when scared and in any case the rich never have to give up anything. I am not suggesting there is nothing 'going on' with the climate, and pollution is an obvious - and very horrible - problem. However, the idea of 'reputable' science is questionable, as there are many instances in history when the 'reputable' received wisdom stood firmly in the way of progress for many years. Proper science asks questions, and keeps on asking. It does not shut down dissent with a pejorative label such as 'Climate Change Denier' and deprive those who question the prevalent narrative of their reputations and their livelihood. 'Anti-Vax Nut-job' is another of those labels, which neatly disposes of opposition and shuts down debate. Many doctors and climate scientists have knowingly risked their profession by challenging these dogmas. Why would they do this if they did not have alternative evidence? The wretched term 'disinformation' has become an excuse for the suppression of free speech and open enquiry.

If we achieved net zero tomorrow, it wouldn't make the slightest difference to the world figures.

We produce something like >1% of all emissions, in the world. China has thousands of coal fired powerstations and more are being built

Well said, undines!!

Wait long enough and global warming becomes global freezing. Why don’t they just call it global changing? In the particular part of the world where I live it has actually levelled out- not so hot as it once was ten, twenty years ago but not so cold in Winter,either. We don’t get frosts much anymore but we don’t get 40C plus heat for more than a couple of days at a time. We used to get both every year. I believe it is similar in parts of the UK.

Elegran

So it is the fault of the media who splash a sensational version of the conclusions, without checking their logic, not of the reputable scientists.

The media companies are there to make money, the more sensational their content the more they make. It doesn't have to be factual, true or honest. They promote environmental content in the same way as Politics and Celebrity content and I hope we all realize how scurrilous much of that is.

Or maybe some don’t.

nanna8

Wait long enough and global warming becomes global freezing. Why don’t they just call it global changing? In the particular part of the world where I live it has actually levelled out- not so hot as it once was ten, twenty years ago but not so cold in Winter,either. We don’t get frosts much anymore but we don’t get 40C plus heat for more than a couple of days at a time. We used to get both every year. I believe it is similar in parts of the UK.

Well, it as known as Climate Change, too. Which is a fair description of what is happening.

We're getting warmer winters, too. Summers are patchy, but what we are getting is almost incessant rain. The ground is so saturated that even a light rain shower makes puddles because there's nowhere for it to go.

It's not a good situation for agriculture, waterlogged fields are no more productive than baked dry ones.

There is no doubt the climate is changing, how that affects the UK is not certain by any means, in the short term warmer weather looks likely.

As for farming and food production, there will be positives as well as negatives, crops are grown in much more extreme climates, we only get localized flooding in the UK other countries get floods covering millions of acres regularly. Warmer weather may mean the crops like Soya, Grain Maize and Sunflower, even Grapes, can be more widely grown, farmers will adapt, as they always have.

There is no doubt that climate has always changed from the beginning of time. Why have humans just discovered climate change in the last century?

Bcause it is happening at a scale fast enough for them to notice the difference, and too fast for them to gradually change their settlement areas to more liveable places, or alter their several billion lifestyles to suit. The biggest inversions of the past took place when there were no humans.

If the "tipping points" that may soon be reached turn out to be real, and temperatures do rise unstoppably, a very wide band around the equator and the tropics and beyond could become hot deserts unable to support human life, due to the fierce temperatures and the ferocious subsequent storms, agriculture could be impossible and whole populations could be seeking new homelands at the slightly cooler poles.

Those who deny that there is even a possibility that this would happen have their heads in the sand. If it is possible then there should be forward planning to minimise the likelihood and to be prepared to try to mitigate the effects.

Elegran So how do you explain that the biggest inversions of climate change happened in the past when there were NO humans to effect or influence that change? Yet now humans are thought to be solely responsible for climate changes.

Please note that the tipping model is a MODEL forecast on seven times more volume of water than exists at the moment and so well into the future that humans may well be living on another planet by then.

Katie59

There is no doubt the climate is changing, how that affects the UK is not certain by any means, in the short term warmer weather looks likely.

As for farming and food production, there will be positives as well as negatives, crops are grown in much more extreme climates, we only get localized flooding in the UK other countries get floods covering millions of acres regularly. Warmer weather may mean the crops like Soya, Grain Maize and Sunflower, even Grapes, can be more widely grown, farmers will adapt, as they always have.

You've neatly sidestepped the wetter weather, haven't you, Katie59?

How are farmers going to harvest these wonderful new crops (though we've been growing grapes in the UK for a long, long time) on totally waterlogged soils without destroying the soil structure and so decreasing soil fertility?

ronib

Elegran So how do you explain that the biggest inversions of climate change happened in the past when there were NO humans to effect or influence that change? Yet now humans are thought to be solely responsible for climate changes.

Please note that the tipping model is a MODEL forecast on seven times more volume of water than exists at the moment and so well into the future that humans may well be living on another planet by then.

They happened more slowly without expert human assistance.

My point was that IF the predicted model DOES turn out to be true then we will all be in the Doo-doo at some point, and it would be worth making sure that it DOESN'T come to pass.

Too many people are claiming that it couldn't possibly happen so we can just ignore any signs that it might do.

As little people all we as individuals can do is our best.

Those who have families in far flung corners of the world will still visit, I expect those who can will replace their cars, phones, tablets, white goods and anything else they need all of these use water, minerals along with other resources.

I am ,just saddened each year by the ineffectiveness of these junkets or as they are commonly known COP’s.

MaizieD

Katie59

There is no doubt the climate is changing, how that affects the UK is not certain by any means, in the short term warmer weather looks likely.

As for farming and food production, there will be positives as well as negatives, crops are grown in much more extreme climates, we only get localized flooding in the UK other countries get floods covering millions of acres regularly. Warmer weather may mean the crops like Soya, Grain Maize and Sunflower, even Grapes, can be more widely grown, farmers will adapt, as they always have.

You've neatly sidestepped the wetter weather, haven't you, Katie59?

How are farmers going to harvest these wonderful new crops (though we've been growing grapes in the UK for a long, long time) on totally waterlogged soils without destroying the soil structure and so decreasing soil fertility?

😄😄

I think katie59 is a post of wishful thinking.