- Dec 17, 2010
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If climate change is the changing thermostat of the planet, AMOC is the heat-pump ocean current that spreads that heat around. If that heat stops moving northwards from the equator some very bad things could be locked into place. Like the last few year's La Nina. I personally prefer Australia being super-wet than super-dry. I couldn't BREATHE properly when the mega-fires of 2019/2020 burned across the east coast for 6 months. Sydney was brown for MONTHS. We prayed and prayed for rain. Who would have thought - in such awful drought conditions - one could eventually get sick of rain? But after fires come the floods - worse than ever before. Weirder and more intense than before. Rain and ongoing humidity so that EVERYTHING is covered in mould. A friend's dartboard on his veranda is just covered in huge mould patches. Kids unable to play soccer a WHOLE SEASON - with maybe 1 match only allowed - because the grounds are too sodden and running on them would destroy the lawns. Homes leaking. Home's moving and cracking as the soil moves. Landslides. Lawns overgrown because we can't find a day to mow. People trapped at home for 2 years during a pandemic now unable to go enjoy walks because it is almost always raining. Entire towns like Lismore being flooded. Twice. The town may have to move.
And now it could become PERMANENT?
This excess of tropical Atlantic heat pushes more warm moist air into the upper troposphere (around 10 kilometres into the atmosphere), causing dry air to descend over the east Pacific.
The descending air then strengthens trade winds, which pushes warm water towards the Indonesian seas. And this helps put the tropical Pacific into a La Niña-like state.
Australians may think of La Niña summers as cool and wet. But under the long-term warming trend of climate change, their worst impacts will be flooding rain, especially over the east.
We also show an Atlantic overturning shutdown would be felt as far south as Antarctica. Rising warm air over the West Pacific would trigger wind changes that propagate south to Antarctica. This would deepen the atmospheric low-pressure system over the Amundsen Sea, which sits off west Antarctica.
This low pressure system is known to influence ice sheet and ice shelf melt, as well as ocean circulation and sea-ice extent as far west as the Ross Sea.
The recent wet weather could become the norm in Australia — if this huge ocean current collapses
And now it could become PERMANENT?
The first thing the model simulations revealed was that without the Atlantic overturning, a massive pile-up of heat builds up just south of the Equator.
This excess of tropical Atlantic heat pushes more warm moist air into the upper troposphere (around 10 kilometres into the atmosphere), causing dry air to descend over the east Pacific.
The descending air then strengthens trade winds, which pushes warm water towards the Indonesian seas. And this helps put the tropical Pacific into a La Niña-like state.
Australians may think of La Niña summers as cool and wet. But under the long-term warming trend of climate change, their worst impacts will be flooding rain, especially over the east.
We also show an Atlantic overturning shutdown would be felt as far south as Antarctica. Rising warm air over the West Pacific would trigger wind changes that propagate south to Antarctica. This would deepen the atmospheric low-pressure system over the Amundsen Sea, which sits off west Antarctica.
This low pressure system is known to influence ice sheet and ice shelf melt, as well as ocean circulation and sea-ice extent as far west as the Ross Sea.
The recent wet weather could become the norm in Australia — if this huge ocean current collapses