The Cure for Bad News Is-- Worse News?

If you're climate science literate and/or you've read Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in Washington trilogy (more recently republished in a shorter one volume form as Green Earth), and/or if you've seen the climate crisis movie The Day After Tomorrow, you got the significance right away, and it's big: the Atlantic ocean current (including the Gulf Stream) is slowing down, according to a study published in the peer reviewed science journal Nature.

If you read the abstract, you see this has probably been happening for some time, but it's now that researcher confirm that the climate crisis is a cause.  And its impact is potentially immense.  If the current shuts down or even slows considerably, weather in Europe and at least half of the US changes rapidly and radically.

NBC quotes one of the authors:
"We know somewhere out there is a tipping point where this current system is likely to break down," said study co-author Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. "We still don't know how far away or close to this tipping point we might be. ... This is uncharted territory."

Right now the current is slower than it has been in 1600 years, and predictions of what that means happen to comport with what has been actually happening the past few years.

Perhaps Steve Hanley's semi-hysterical report in Clean Technica is more appropriate:

"...While the world is absorbed in high dramas about trade wars, Syrian chemical attacks, whether Germany can extend the lifetime of diesel-powered cars, or the latest tweet from the White House, we are missing the implications of what is happening in the Atlantic Ocean...."

"Think of AMOC as the cooling system in a car with an internal combustion engine. When operating normally, engine temperatures stay within a range that permits continuous operation indefinitely. Reduce the flow of coolant significantly and what happens? Disaster. And here’s the crux of the matter. When that disaster strikes, it happens all at once with little to no warning. One minute you’re motoring along enjoying the view. The next minute you own a useless lump of metal. That, friends, is a tipping point — a clear demarcation between “then” and “now.”

"The results could be catastrophic for Europe. Not only will winters become significantly colder, but heat waves in the summer will also be more frequent. Hello? Is this not precisely what happened on the continent in the past 12 months?! Is anyone listening?! Does anyone care?! What’s that? What about Hillary’s emails? Never mind. Go back to sleep. Nothing to see here. Move along."

Henley emphasizes Europe (his audience) but at least parts of the US are also imperiled.  Rapid sea level rise is a particular danger for the East Coast. Henley's piece has good graphics to explain all this, and even some "cautious optimism."

Meanwhile you can check out the KSR book to see what the beginning of this might feel like in Washington (for instance.)  The kicker is that it may result in really frigid cold spells.  Start making your iceballs to bring to the floor, you moronic R members of Congress!  At least then you'll have an excuse for burning the Constitution--to keep your worthless butts from freezing off.