«The weakening and strengthening of the stratospheric circulation seems to correspond with
changes in ocean circulation in the North Atlantic,» Reichler says.
Partly this has to do
with changes in ocean circulation taking warmer water deeper and partly as the result of the southern hemisphere having less land mass and more ocean — where the ocean has a higher thermal inertia, meaning that it takes longer for those waters to warm.
Looking at shifts in Manley's winter temperatures from year to year, he says, gives a good reading of important natural cycles that influence climate, such
as changes in ocean circulation like the North Atlantic Oscillation.
Dr. Thomas Delworth, a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, notes the direct effect of
changes in ocean circulation on weather.
Ongoing changes in ocean circulation patterns, which are helping to drive warm water from other parts of the sea closer to the Antarctic continent, are also believed to be a major factor.
To test how well a climate model predicts
possible changes in ocean circulation due to climate change, GISS scientists have simulated the effects of a massive flood of fresh water some 8000 years ago.
Using global climate model simulations that replicated the ocean basins and landmasses of this period, it appears that
changes in ocean circulation due to warming played a key role.
1 Impact of Global Warming Sea level rising Altered precipitation pattern Change in soil moisture content Increase in some extreme weather More flood more drought Alteration of natural climate cycles like El Nino Changes in the species
ranges Changes in the ocean circulation Melting of Arctic permafrost
One new study shows how the warmth may have triggered
huge changes in ocean circulation, setting up an enormous overturning current in the Pacific Ocean, similar to the «conveyor belt» in today's Atlantic that drives weather and climate.
Recent evidence from ice - core drilling in Greenland indicates that similar fluctuations also occurred during the previous interglacial period, possibly due to
rapid changes in ocean circulation.
The closest analogies are with climatic shifts associated with
abrupt changes in ocean circulation, or the sudden global cooling at the end of the dinosaur era that may have been caused by a large asteroid colliding with the earth.
In its discussion of specific examples, such as a
catastrophic change in ocean circulation patterns, the report emphasizes predicted risks that the FAR concluded were minimal through the rest of the century.
The report finds no proof to back up IPCC hysteria that blames CO2 for melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels,
disastrous changes in ocean circulation, or calamitous differences in precipitation patterns and river flows.
The scientists stress that more work is needed to determine
whether changes in ocean circulation initiated the abrupt climate changes or were an intermediary effect initially triggered by something else.
Sensitivity experiments show that atmospheric CO2 closely follows decadal - mean temperature changes
when changes in ocean circulation and ocean - sediment interactions are not important.
However, we still lack a quantitative understanding of the physical mechanisms leading to the
suggested changes in ocean circulation, which inevitably challenges our interpretation of past and present climates and shakes our confidence in future projections.
Simulated changes in the ocean circulation have strong seasonal features with an amplification of the sea surface temperature (SST) seasonal cycle of 1 °C to 2 °C in most places within the tropics (Zhao et al., 2005), influencing the Indian and African monsoons.
But given the ever - increasing intensity of these impacts - and the fact that the melting of Greenland only continues to speed up - it seems likely the future will bring continued dramatic
global changes in ocean circulation.
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This in turn helps explain how factors such as fresh water from melting ice or changes in global wind patterns might lead to large -
scale changes in ocean circulation or climate in the future.
These experiments provide new insight into mechanisms of past climate changes on Earth, which have been driven in part by tectonic changes in ocean basins and
consequent changes in ocean circulation and heat transport.
25: Coasts), due primarily to land subsidence, 5 although recent research suggests that
changes in ocean circulation in the North Atlantic — specifically, a weakening of the Gulf Stream — may also play a role.6
Ocean warming is occurring in concert with the acidification of ocean waters (e.g. Doney et al. 2009), as well
as changes in ocean circulation (e.g. Bakun et al. 2009).
Ongoing changes in ocean circulation patterns, which are helping to drive warm water from other parts of the sea closer to the Antarctic continent, are also believed to be a major factor.