No, the press release, is the so-called “cold spot” in the Atlantic Ocean not a harbinger of the collapse of the Atlantic current – Watt?

An article published on News Breakthrough (NB) titled Scientists issue emergency warnings about mysterious “cold spots” in the ocean: “most likely to be underestimated” A “mysterious cold spot” signal in the Atlantic Ocean indicates that the Atlantic meridian capsulation cycle (AMOC) is about to collapse, which could have “disastrous” consequences. This statement is misleading at best. In fact, AMOC is not weakening at an unprecedented rate, nor is it on the verge of collapse – long-term data and historical trends do not support such a horrible prediction.

As mentioned above, the “cold spots” seen in satellite data derived from NASA in 2018 have been around for some time.

NB article points out that “The decline in the AMOC system is likely to be underestimated by current climate models, and its collapse could lead to devastating climate change.” However, such assertions rely heavily on speculative and especially flawed climate models rather than observing data.

The NB article is based on the latest research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and claims that AMOC is weakened due to climate change. But, like many similar studies, it relies on how AMOC works and what assumptions drive its changes and on climate models based on climate models projections based on these assumptions. This study did not consider direct long-term empirical observations.

Climate alarmers have warned for years that AMOC is about to collapse, but real-world data tells a different story. As At a glance: Ocean Currents Highlights, direct observation data shows that there is no long-term weakening trend in AMOC. The so-called decline is based on incomplete data sets and short-term variability, rather than a robust century record. The Atlantic’s fast array monitoring system showed no consistent trend of sharp weakness. Furthermore, although the so-called cold patches in southern Greenland serve as an indicator of AMOC weakening, temperature changes in this area have multiple reasons, not just AMOC changes. Natural ocean variability, changes in atmospheric circulation and volcanic activity all lead to regional temperature anomalies.

With about 40 years of satellite records, science is currently unable to determine whether the “cold spots” are a routine natural occurrence every few decades, and whether the spots are driven by ocean currents or a periodic or recent phenomenon due to the inflow of melted ice.

Furthermore, historical research shows that similar cold anomalies had occurred before the Atlantic Ocean before industrial journal emissions became a factor. If the cooling zone of the North Atlantic is a reliable indicator of AMOC weakening, then AMOC is said to have collapsed several times over the past few centuries, but never done.

Perhaps the most obvious problem with the narrative of AMOC collapse is that it is constantly changing. Over the past two decades, the same climate activist who now claims AMOC is weakened by global warming previously thought the opposite – warming will strengthen amoc. As pointed out Climate Realism: Climate Activists Flip Over Ocean Currents Againscientists and mainstream media have repeatedly changed their positions, sometimes thinking that AMOC is accelerating, sometimes claiming that it is slowing down and crashing, while others saying that the speed of the current has not changed much at all.

For example, in 2005, NASA reported that AMOC was slowing down, but by 2010, researchers claimed that AMOC was actually accelerate Due to melting Arctic ice. Then, in 2015, the narrative returned to the slowdown of AMOC until it moved again in 2018, when another paper suggested that AMOC recovered and previous conclusions may have been exaggerated.

When it comes to AMOC, like the ever-changing narrative on the monsoon, the narrative changes every time a new study is published, but whatever changes occur, the cause is always attributed to human activities, and if the government does not take action, the results are always catastrophic. But what actions will we take when the expected disasters keep changing? Is AMOC accelerating, slowing down or keeping the same? Choose your study.

If AMOC really experiences an unprecedented artificial collapse, the narrative should not change with each new study, but rather that the study should produce consistent results.

Main issues PNAS Research and NB articles are reliance on climate model predictions, and even if past predictions are always flawed, modelers themselves acknowledge that they have not accurately portrayed the key metrics they designed for projection, namely global temperature. As we reported In climate realism Here, here and here, the climate model has always overestimated the warming rate and failed to account for natural climate change.

The media's progress in climate predictions is spreading with failed apocalypse scenes. Just decades ago, headlines were filled with warnings of the coming Ice Age. Now, observable natural fluctuations in weather or climate are blamed on human activities and are portrayed as existential crisis. The NB article fits this model and proposes a speculative study that seems to be undeniable evidence of an imminent disaster.

Instead of a balanced view of scientific debate, the media continues to push shocking narratives, with the aim of not informing but raising fear. However, these stories are almost always inexperienced support, even flying in the face of the actual display of the data. The reality is that there is no evidence that AMOC is about to collapse. Indeed, based on the current state of knowledge about AMOC, science cannot even tell if it is changing, let alone accelerating or slowing down. Readers should be better than another round of speculative climate doomsday predictions based on unverified alert research day to day.

Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is a senior researcher in the Environment and Climate at the Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business in front of and behind the camera since 1978 and currently broadcast forecasts are being made every day. He created a weather graphics demonstration system for television, professional weather instruments, and co-authored a peer-reviewed paper on climate issues. He runs the most viewed website in the world on the award-winning site wattsupwiththat.com.

Originally published in the climateRealism

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