
Cold spot in the Atlantic: scientists think their worst fears have come true - G8WyaX
http://inhabitat.com/a-curious-cold-spot-in-the-atlantic-has-scientists-thinking-their-worst-fears-have-come-true/
======
chmaynard
Citation points to this more detailed article:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2015/09/24/why-some-scientists-are-worried-about-a-cold-blob-
in-the-north-atlantic-ocean/)

~~~
doublerebel
And that article points to this follow-up article:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2015/09/24/why-some-scientists-are-worried-about-a-cold-blob-
in-the-north-atlantic-ocean/)

------
hedora
The issue is that the Atlantic currents may be shutting down. If that happens,
Western Europe will become drastically colder.

The article doesn’t make this point very coherently.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
There's a linked Washington Post article at the bottom, that links to an
updated Washington Post article that says:

 _I also quoted two prominent researchers who think this pattern reflects a
much feared slowdown in Atlantic ocean circulation, a scenario made famous by
the film The Day After Tomorrow. Granted, even if they’re right, what’s
happening here will be nothing like the movie. At most, the circulation may be
slowing, not stopping abruptly. And with a warming globe overall, there will
definitely be no new ice age._

~~~
kobeya
> And with a warming globe overall, there will definitely be no new ice age.

That's bullocks. That's not how "global warming" works, which is why
scientists are typically careful to call it "climate change." The temperature
of a region is predominantly affected by ocean and air currents. Sunny
Marseille in France with its Mediterranean climate is the same latitude as New
England. Montreal gets bitter cold for 5 months of the year but London, a full
5deg further north, gets a few days of snow and a lot of rain.

These differences in regional weather at the same or similar latitudes are
waaaaay bigger than the few degrees global average increase we see in world-
is-ending predictions, and are entirely due to these ocean currents. If they
slow down significantly or stop or change direction, it'd be a big freaking
deal. If the English Midlands started getting winters like Winnipeg, Canada,
that'd be a pretty big deal. While not a glacial period per se, it'd be worse
than Europe's Little Ice Age, so I'm going to go ahead and call it what it is.

~~~
yxhuvud
> These differences in regional weather at the same or similar latitudes are
> waaaaay bigger than the few degrees global average increase

This is true, but it is also irrelevant. The keyword 'global average' \-
global heating will not be uniform. The closer an area is to the poles, more
heating will happen. Europe is pretty far north so the effects will be pretty
large. Large enough to offset the Atlantic streams? Perhaps, perhaps not.

I'm more worried about changing precipitation patterns, to be honest.

~~~
kobeya
> The closer an area is to the poles, more heating will happen.

I see no basis for this assertion.

~~~
yxhuvud
See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_amplification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_amplification)
for details.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
From the linked Wikipedia article:

Where the atmosphere or an extensive ocean is able to convect heat polewards,
the poles will be warmer and equatorial regions cooler than their local net
radiation balances would predict.*

 _In the extreme, the planet Venus is thought to have experienced a very large
increase in greenhouse effect over its lifetime,[3] so much so that its poles
have warmed sufficiently to render its surface temperature effectively
isothermal (no difference between poles and equator).

Both palaeoclimate changes and recent global warming changes have exhibited
strong polar amplification, as described below._

 _Both palaeoclimate changes and recent global warming changes have exhibited
strong polar amplification, as described below._

------
DanielBMarkham
Not such a good post for HN. Two years old, flamebait title, a thin shell on
top of better, more comprehensive coverage, and muddy prose that leaves the
reader more befuddled than educated. It also appears to be FUD about something
that never actually happened as far as I can tell.

Yet it got 30 votes in the first hour.

------
missbit
Soon Europe will need to expend more energy to heat during winters. Currently
this is done with coal & Russian Gas (& French nukes)

Dacian has a better way that is actually cheaper than burning gas. Solar power
used to directly heat a big thermal mass.

He moves generated electricity into big resistors within the concrete block &
there is a controller that turn on / off those resistors. Concrete heats up by
day & radiates heat at night.

Another cheap way is to heat a barrel of water using the resistance of wires
running into that barrel.

[http://electrodacus.com/](http://electrodacus.com/) He also offers some
great, cheap solar <-> lithium battery controllers.

Sweet, huh?

~~~
monk_e_boy
How is this different to a normal storage heater? Most homes in the UK have
them. They turn on when energy is ceap, the electricity heats concrete, the
heat is radiated out.

So, he invented something that uas been commercially available for decades?

~~~
missbit
Good to hear the UK is already doing this.

He made a controller that allows solar panels to directly heat the concrete.
I'm not sure if he invented anything. He made a controller, open sourced it,
and produced & sold them near cost.

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bhouston
This is 2 years old and is based on 6 months of data. Any updates?

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ComputerGuru
@dang could you please add (2015) to the title? The title is misleading as-is
(and thus flagged) since it makes it seem like breaking news.

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cerved
2-year old, shallow and short article. Disappointing

