Finally , the ocean motor driving our climate is news – cover story by Jaap Tielbeke in the dutch weekly De Groene Amsterdammer #35 (31 aug 2023): ‘The blue machine is malfunctioning’.
With a changing climate, that machine may perhaps stop suddenly, and result in catastrofic snowball effects, I learned ca 50 years ago , but never before noticed in the news.
The ocean motor : with the Gulf Stream bringing warm ocean water at the surface from the Caribbean to Europe – resulting in a mild climate in Europe – continuing further north the now cooled – and heavier saltier – water sinks to the bottom of the ocean , and the stream cold water returns at the bottom to the South.
With higher temperatures at the North Pole and less cooling of the surface water that circulation may stop abrupt.
Already in the 70s we – biology students at the Leiden university in Holland – were told about the danger of a greenhouse effect – the effects over the next 50-100 years : the global rising temperature by 2-5 degrees Celsius / 4-9 Fahrenheit , melting of polar ice caps , rise of the sea level …. and because people in the west part of Holland are living far below the sea level – some 50% of our country vanishing in the North Sea … with the now eastern Dutch town of ‘Amersfoort’ becoming a sea-side town .. “Amersfoort on Sea”.
That’s at least the take-home-message I got late 1970s from professor Frits Böttcher’s fascinating , expert , lectures at the Leiden university “Our dependence on the natural resources” that I took for my master’s study Biochemistry (B4) – a ‘caput’ lecture series in ’77/’78 with the dutch title “Natuurlijke hulpbronnen en onze afhankelijkheid ervan”.
Böttcher was a co-founder of the ‘Club of Rome’ (link http://www.clubofrome.org/Index.php?s=bottcher++ ) . The image shows my exam card and mark by Böttcher in ’79.
A hypothesis in the 70s…the ocean motor may stop…now the motor has slowed down.
Citation : Ocean Climate Motor | 20230916 | 1-memo•com
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