Slowing ocean current caused by melting Antarctic ice could have drastic impact | Hacker News Reader

Slowing ocean current caused by melting Antarctic ice could have drastic impact

theguardian.com

18 pointsljf8 comments

I did a display for the NAS museum in Washington some years ago, about the North Atlantic Conveyor and how Arctic ice melt could redirect it for years, decades. Leaving Britain and Western Europe in a cold snap that could have snow in July for a generation.

See, global warming is like the power failing in your kitchen. The freezer will defrost, leaving the kitchen colder for a time. Until the ice is gone; then it will be hot everywhere forever.

Weather isn't as simple as "Global warming can't be right, because it's cooler at my house!" It's a vast globe-spanning system that runs from the stratosphere to the deepest ocean. And it's all feeling the effects and changing.

I think there are so many possible tipping points out there - some we won't notice until it is far too late, some we may be able to reverse and some the will seem like nothing - until suddenly it becomes rather serious.

Fun times ahead.

I can't think of any we can reverse. In my mind trying to reverse climate change would be like trying to terraform Venus. It's just so outside the realm of possibility for our current level of engineering.

The 'some we may be able to reverse' - I'm thinking of things like a lake bursting it's banks - once that happens it may then turn into a river and all the benefit of the lake may be lost - though it may (with will and funding) be reversible. But yes, may of the tipping points we face will be irreversible. As once the lake banks burst once, they are very likely to again and again.

I find myself increasingly ignoring articles with 'could have' in the title.

I find it always a bit strange if somebody says that something “could have” a large impact. The only way to prove this wrong is to prove that it is logically or after all we know empirically impossible that large impact could arise.

Also this does not give much information until we talk about probabilities and the exact nature of the impact.

I read the article thoroughly, but the findings seem actually only about the fact that there will be an estimated 40% slowdown in circulation.

"Something bad could happen in the far future" is not going to convince people, especially when that something is an academic abstraction. Show the satellite images of what has already happened, with the difference visible clearly, and you won't need to explain what "ocean currents" are.

I've heard this over the last 30 years. Never seems to happen.

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