Friends of Gaia present cawfeemug’s report on the Collapse of the Gulf Stream
Please note:
For those of you who may not be able to spare more than a few minutes of your time to learn about the collapse of the Gulf Stream, I’ve provided a brief synopsis which begins immediately after this paragraph.
For the stalwart, it will hopefully provide a base from which to navigate the rest of this somewhat lengthy information laden diary.
While Meteor Blades, and at least one other diarist, have already covered the G.F. in the past, it was embedded in compilations of climate news. If there was a diary devoted to it, I missed it, but feel it certainly warrants another, as well as no limit to the benefits of repetition considering the magnitude of the threat it poses to global climate stability.
~~~~~
Synopsis:
In an open letter published online Monday (Oct. 21), University of Pennsylvania climatologist Michael Mann and other eminent scientists say the risks of weakening ocean circulation in the Atlantic have been greatly underestimated and warrant urgent action.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/key-atlantic-current-could-collapse-soon-impacting-the-entire-world-for-centuries-to-come-leading-climate-scientists-warn
~~~
There has been a steady growth in the amount of meltwater running off the south eastern coast of Greenland. Despite being ice-cold, this freshwater floats and as a result it chills the warm surface water that has been transferred north by the Gulf Stream current. This interference is creating an enormous anomalous ‘cold spot', while the rest of the planet’s oceans heat up. Ordinarily the frigid temperature of this water would cause it to sink into the depths of the ocean to complete the ‘conveyor belt’ of the G.S. by returning south, but due to its lack of salinity, it is becoming increasingly less able to ‘make the trip’ and instead gets dispersed across the surface of waters east and south of Greenland.
Disruption of the G.S. has multiple consequences, which include a loss of 40% of the vital nutrients and oxygen that would ordinarily be carried back south. These are vital for sustaining the flora and fauna of not just the southern ocean, but more or less the rest of the world’s oceans as well. Furthermore, the resulting breakdown of this ‘backbone’ current, will have a ‘chilling effect’ on Europe and England, as it brings less warmth to the North Atlantic, while being displaced by colder surface water from glacial runoff. The mean temperature of Great Britain could drop permanently by as much as 10C, which would give it a climate akin to Iceland.
Ultimately, when the Gulf Stream finally collapses all together, it will affect all ocean currents worldwide, which in turn will disrupt global weather patterns, as the miraculous arabesque of beneficial interconnectivity unravels.
As to when this collapse may become permanent, estimates vary from a couple of decades to the end of the century. Judging from how surprisingly rapid the development of environmental collapse has become, the earlier than expected weakening of the Gulf Stream may be clipping even the more optimistic of these predictions. Our subconscious need to evade apprehensive anxiety, reacts by infusing false comfort into what is ultimately educated guesswork, by corrupting its objectivity.
‘cawfeemug’, who has studied this phenomenon in depth, is dubious of such warm and ‘fuzzy’ forecasts.
~~~~~
Introduction:
It’s not what we know that’s important, it’s what we don’t know.
~~~~~
The universal language of the Cosmos is mathematics, but it is a language few speak well enough to translate.
Being terrestrially bound, we generally don’t need to. When necessary, the capable few amongst us act as go-betweens, while the benefit we derive from their toil gets repaid with near universal disinterest. This still fledgling ‘cosmic’ communication, while being off-radar to most, and nonessential to the rest, nevertheless remains as an outlying indicator of the average individual’s limits to a fuller understanding and appreciation of life. The universe is after all, the greater world our “mote of dust” it floats in.
This is, to a certain extent, my metaphorical interpretation and simplification of how we currently relate to the cosmos, meant to point out our collective limitations for comprehending on an expansive scale, the richness of existence. To far lesser degrees this provincialism plays out variably on more pedestrian levels to maintain the blinding ignorance that impoverishes our lives. Yet somehow we find shelter in this.
Each discipline one is not conversive in, limits the substance and value of life experience even further, while diminishing the range of cross-fertilized knowledge. The less you know, the less you comprehend, and the less you comprehend, the less you appreciate, until finally the world becomes disposable.
As per example: while the imperiled Parthenon, threatened as it is by the collapse enveloping us, might still be considered world famous, such distinction is being stretched thin, as few care anymore, and fewer still know much if anything about it. Global attention has been redirected towards chimerical desires, as well as subsumed by the apotheosis of greed and the strife that follows in its wake.
Those that still harbor interest in this architectural wonder, come from the ranks of archaeologists, architects, historians and artists, while those that take a scholarly approach are scarcer than droplets on a duck’s back. Sprinkled amongst them are a smattering that can profoundly grasp the miracle of its existence, becoming altered by the ‘light’ its beauty provides, as it outshines all but a handful of human achievements.
Very few of us comprehend the phenomenal splendor of our cosmic home. To a lesser degree, this was the case in the past, as man had much yet to discover about the world on a fundamental level.
As new knowledge unfurled, inadequate, still developing objective analytical skills struggled to improve his inaccurate and incomplete view of things more or less still ‘alien’. He compensated by being deeply connected to the natural world — which, until severed by science, included the ‘mysteries’ as well.
On average, we relate to and benefit considerably less from either now.
Peasants knew their fields, and hunters their forests — intimately — while most men today have only a cursory knowledge of their own backyards.
This rapport afforded those of the past a deeper connection with life than the majority of us have know, unless you consider video games an equivalent substitute.
Despite our self-trumpeted ‘advancement’, much life-enhancing information now goes neglected, due to our curiosity being ‘managed’ by others, who channel it for profit and dominance, into the distraction of novelty.
Digging our graves deeper, has been the wholesale rejection of life’s intangibles as being either worthless, or worse yet taxing, because they don’t provide answers — they ask questions.
Science, which is as much about control as curiosity, has made short work of this essential infatuation between the known and the unknowable. In attempting to dismiss the latter, and by doing so sever the inner-connectivity of these inseparables, it deprives us of much of the robust life-sustaining vitality they once provided. As an unworthy replacement, science has offered the ‘Trojan horse’ of technology, which has left us floundering in the ego-fed-delusion of misdirected self-determination.
There are those that can get more out of life while confined in a prison cell, than others do while roaming the world freely.
>Indeed, it is accepted as ‘common currency’ to be hemmed in by personal limitations and self-incarcerated by fears.
Although many are traveling more than ever now, they do so with severely limited comprehension, which sharply curtails the experience being offered. For most, history and culture remain opaque. This obscurity causes the stimulation of novelty to quickly fade.
A certain amount of familiarity is gained through media, but this is, for the most part, so unfocused and piecemeal that it has become the equivalent of trying to understand the how-to of agriculture by eating chopped salad.
The vast majority of humans have neither the mental nor economic wherewithal to attempt to developed a well-rounded multidisciplinary approach to even a fractional sample of the buffet of life and most lack the curiosity necessary to propel the effort.
As such, the loss we’re currently facing environmentally can be a Sphinx-ian abstraction, made even more so by its enormity. Adding to this ‘twilight’ horror, is the conundrum that humanity at large isn’t even paying attention — as most are either caught up in the ‘amusement park’ of consumption, or the meat grinder life has become for those enslaved to sustain it.
~~~
There are many aspects of environmental collapse currently vying for catastrophic supremacy.
As our attention becomes absorbed by the compelling drama of glacial melting, the nightmare scenario of threatening ‘wet bulb’ events, the devastation caused by ‘peek-a-boo’ zombie fires or the stultifying mental distress of ‘pick & choose’, we can easily be caught off-guard by unwelcome rambunctious interlopers who manage to slip past initial notice.
One such, comes in the form of ‘Gulf Stream collapse’ — and it does so promising, as an X-L domino to wreck absolute havoc.
‘cawfeemug’ aka Gilbert, has been tracking the progress of this long predicted event for sometime now. His go-to gauge has been satellite imagery created to determine the progress of ocean coral reef bleaching, because these ‘maps’ distinctly show the current of the Gulf Stream.
Gilbert provides an inspiring example to the rest of us through the tenaciousness of his commitment.
Despite currently being in hospice, he continues to track this progress, patiently catching me up to speed by sending updates with brief commentaries for many months now.
He also provides updates through his Medium account https://gilbertweaversatchell.medium.com/12-01-2024-current-events-4705d1665a58
… which in turn, provides this link which displays an animated map focused on the G.F.
earth :: a global map of wind, weather, and ocean conditions
This is a screen shot…open the link to view the actual movement of the G.S. as it approx appears now.
Most of the rest of this diary is a compilation edited from the reports Gilbert has sent me —
I have placed his commentary in quotations:
“I have been using the Earth null school map to monitor the Gulf Stream for months now. I have it set to the coral bleaching alert panel because it gives a clear view of the Gulf Stream and it’s heat. I used the calendar and went back in time by the week for some 7/8 weeks. These are screenshots and not altered in anyway.”
The next five images running down the right side illustrate in sequence the cooling taking place over a relatively short period of time. With careful observation, you can detect both a weakening of the current which appears in white and pale yellow screen, and the cooling of the ocean has the large red patches dissipate.
“The Gulf Stream has lost almost all of its heat. The melt water from Greenland is cooling off the Atlantic Ocean. It is light and has less salt so it won’t sink and recharge the AMOC as it used to. The AMOC starts along South Americas eastern shore, travels up, gains current from Africa and up the the Gulf of Mexico. It’s involvement
with the Gulf of Mexico is now limited. Apparently the area to watch for more change is the ocean off the east side of Greenland or its head waters, where in normal times it would sink. Will the Gulf Stream shut down? Yes. When. Some have proposed somewhere between 2025 and 2095. Most agree on 2050. I am of the mind it is 2025/6. And yes, when it does all hell will break loose. The currents in the ocean and the currents in our atmosphere are tied together and there are giant shifts taking place around the globe.”
This is a link to his Medium page for more information and analysis:
12~01~2024 Current Events. This is the start of a current events… | by Gilbert Weaver Satchell | Dec, 2024 | Medium
~~~~~~~~
The final two images on the right side illustrate Gilbert’s observation which follows:
…and on 12/6/24 cawfeemug sent me this
“To the right of Greenland you can see the current running up within the color green. What you can barely see is the current running over the ice along
Greenlands eastern shore. It is drainage from the Arctic Ocean and that is damn scary. This is the headwaters of the AMOC. As the blue grows and over takes the green due to ice melt, it is the clear signal of the AMOC shut-down.“
“In this panel you can clearly see the drainage from the Arctic Ocean. “
cawfeemug sent this on 11/28/24
(My synopsis above was largely drawn from my reading of it, as per his recommendation.)
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/news/this-spot-will-be-key-to-the-inevitable-collapse-of-a-key-atlantic-current/ar-AA1uspaN#
Here is his comment and forewarning:
“So I found this page last night and I followed and downloaded all the links in the article, a total of 9. This is a very scary report and shows how un-educated I am. The dark spot at the
upper right of the gif is key to the collapse of the Gulf Stream. Notice in the title it says “inevitable”. We cannot escape it, this collapse. I sent out that multi-image email showing the history of the loss of heat in the Gulf Stream, it won’t be long now for the collapse. The fresh, salt free, colder water is building up below the Gulf Stream and as shown it is slowing down already and the flow rate is diminished as well. The already forecasted date is somewhere between 2025 and 2090 with a general agreement of 2050. In my view in could
be as soon as the coming year, we are that close. So, if you have the time and are so inclined I recommend following the links and reading the cited materials…but…a warning, they make my blood run cold.”
…and on 12/7/24 I received this:
“In this image you can clearly see the growing cold, salt water free, melt water pooling off of the eastern shore of Greenland and the tip of Greenland as well. In other images these pools are shifting from blue to green with the blue areas growing. Less current or weaker current isn’t protecting England and massive storms are becoming quite frequent.”
11
cawfeemug left this comment to Mokurai’s 12/10/24 DK Diary “Renewable Tuesday” Renewable Tuesday: Imagine This! — which I provide here verbatim:
“Extreme Climate Impacts From Collapse of a Key Atlantic Ocean Current Could be Worse Than Expected, a New Study Warns
insideclimatenews.org/…
Disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current could freeze Europe, scorch the tropics and increase sea level rise in the North Atlantic. The tipping point may be closer than predicted in the IPCC’s latest assessment.
From Feb. of this year. Sorry it’s dated but it’s message holds true. No one is taking about the AMOC shutting down except for a select few. Have you ever tried to stop a run-a-way train? Great. Now stop the AMOC from shutting down. Sorry, I don’t deal in hopium. Need more info? Go here…
12~01~2024 Current Events”
gilbertweaversatchell.medium.com/… “
~~~
…..and an update from his Medium page:
https://gilbertweaversatchell.medium.com/12-01-2024-current-events-4705d1665a58
update on medium 12/11/24
Around this time Gilbert provided this link to Paul Beckwith, whom he thinks very highly of:
AMOC Collapse Risks Hugely Underestimated according to Open Letter by Prominent Climate Scientists
… and shortly after, this comment which explains another aspect of the disruption of the heat transfer:
12/14/24 Gilbert
“Climate wise things are moving rapidly and I keep finding reasons to update my “Current Events” page. The Arctic just took a big dump from one of it’s biggest glaciers that had created a lake and the lake burst. The eastern side of Greenland is the focus now. All that fresh water hasn’t any salt so it can’t sink and feed the AMOC. All the heat from the Atlantic is flowing down to Antarctica and heating it from the bottom up. The poles are getting hit really hard and I see major shifts in weather patterns coming soon.” (My bold)
… along with this link, which I make mention of in my synopsis:
Antarctic currents supplying 40% of world's deep ocean with nutrients and oxygen slowing dramatically
By Sascha Pare published May 25, 2023
These deep ocean tides supply almost half of the world's oceans with vital nutrients and oxygen, but melting ice shelves are slowing them down.
~~~
… and finally, I add this relatively recent message from Gilbert of 12/20/24
which provides another interactive animated link showing the current motion of the Gulf Stream:
“The fresh melt water from Greenland flows along its eastern shore, around its tip and across to the St. Lawrence current which flows down to the delta of Canada and is dispersed. This current has grown dramatically in the last few days, so much so the current flow is visable in this image. It is starting to have an effect on the flow of the Gulf Stream indicating it’s lack of salt and it’s inability to sink. What a wild ride, hang on tight………...”
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-58.63,45.68,1031/loc=-79.582,26.215
12
While his updates keep arriving, for now I think this is sufficient to provide an adequate overview of this developing global catastrophe, of which the majority of humanity remains blissfully unaware.
~~~~~
Before ending, I provide this report with a link provided by M.B. in Earth Matters 12/20/24.
It is to a PBS segment explaining, and discussing the current state of the AMOC and well worth reviewing.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/20/2292227/-Earth-Matters-Myopians-want-a-return-to-the-days-when-shooting-a-wolf-made-you-a-hero?utm_campaign=recent
Meteor Blades Earth Matters 12/20/24 more on AMOC incl PBS link
Finally:
I opened my synopsis to this article with a reference to Michael Mann, and have chosen to end this diary with another article from Live Science, written by him approximately a year ago.
Michael Mann: Yes, we can still stop the worst effects of climate change. Here's why. | Live Science
The following is an excerpt of his credentials as provided by the article:
“Michael Mann is Climatologist and geophysicist in addition to being the presidential distinguished professor and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania.”
Although environmental collapse is moving along at a brisk clip, I’m assuming that since this article was linked to the one I provided at the beginning of my synopsis, it is deemed as still pertinent.
Fin.
Please note: My original version of the diary had very large images. Although in the past, I’ve been able to transfer these without shrinkage, for some reason, this was not possible while trying to load this posting into the DK format. I’m relatively new at including images with text and have been having to learn by trial and error. When others try to help me, they end up speaking a language I don’t understand.
As it is, it took upwards of 2+ hours just to get this diary formatted with DK. I hope to get better at this to improve the quality of my listings, but even more so to make life easier for myself. :-)
