The Beaufort Gyre is a massive wind-driven current in the Arctic Ocean. Located north of Alaska and Canada’s Yukon Territory, it is like a giant spinning top that corrals vast amounts of sea ice in the far north.
Ordinarily, the gyre adhered to a cyclical pattern in which it would shift gears every five to seven years and temporarily reverse its flow from clockwise to counterclockwise. This would expel ice and freshwater into the eastern Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic.
But for more than a dozen years, it has been stuck in a clockwise flow, spinning faster than usual, and collecting more and more freshwater from melting sea ice, rivers in Russia and North America, and water from the Bering Sea. At this point, the Beaufort Gyre holds as much freshwater as all the Great Lakes combined.
According to some experts, this situation represents a ticking climate bomb. When the flow finally does reverse, it could temporarily cool the climate of Iceland and northern Europe and have a major impact on commercial fisheries in the North Atlantic.
A similar, albeit smaller event, now called the Great Salinity Anomaly, took place in the 1970s, and led to some exceptionally cold European winters.
Ocean experts are nervously waiting to see what happens when the gyre stops sucking in freshwater and finally exhales.
The strange behavior is likely linked, at least in part, to the profound warming of the Arctic. Disruptions in one rapidly changing part of the world can affect ecosystems hundreds or even thousands of miles away. It is quite possible that the gyre will continue to grow and spin clockwise for years to come. What will happen next is anyone’s guess.
**********
Web Links
How a Wayward Arctic Current Could Cool the Climate in Europe
Photo, posted March 30, 2006, courtesy of PJ Hansen via Flickr.
‘Strange Ocean Current Behavior’ from Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
It is concerning that a host of tipping point parameters may have already taken place in the Arctic since the observed warming trend has been greatest on top of our world. And there is an astounding inertia to change our human behavior towards Biospere One in regards to burning through fossil fuels.
However, at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, there R & D with Perovskites ( the next generation of photovoltaic technology ) has the potential to replace coal burning electricity plants…and more. I guess the folks at NREL have to work out moisture challenges that compromise the effectiveness of Perovskites. Why is this not an international effort with the best scientists from around the world since atmospheric Carbon Dioxide levels are currently greater than what has the documented in the past 800,000 years. Why does human behavior prefer ( choose ) to kick the can down the road and keep ” business as usual? ”
More than half of the CO2 generated is absorbed by the Ocean, ( the great climate driver ), creating a marine acidification problem. Anthropogenic acidification of the great climate driver along with warming of our Oceans and industrial agriculture run off ( nutritional pollution ) leading to eutrophication ” could ” compromise the air we breathe.
What do I mean? Pause for a moment…now, take a breath…and take a second breath. Where did the oxygen from the second breath come from? That is not a rhetorical question. Half of all the oxygen we breathe is created by microscopic, marine phytoplankton at the base of our living web. Have we forced a compromise on the marine phytoplankton that produces 50 percent of all the oxygen we require to stand upright and make sense? What happens if we cause an extinction level event for the phytoplankton which allowed aerobic life on earth to exist? What is the population status of these microscopic phytoplankton that we are so heavily dependent upon?
There is a multi-front, climate battle that is necessary to salvage as much of what is good in this world and its worth fighting for. We cannot single out and pronounce that ” this is the most important global warming parameter that requires our full attention. ” We need to address and reverse the course of climate change on all fronts because if we will not take care of Mother Nature, she cannot take care of us.
Thanks for your comment, Douglas. You are certainly correct that the course of climate change has to be addressed on all fronts. The issue of why many people are dragging their feet or even completely denying what has become blatantly obvious is one that is increasingly addressed in psychology journals and elsewhere. The desire to maximize near-term economic benefits causes people to convince themselves that there is still plenty of time to fix things later, even when such thinking flies in the face of the evidence. There are also those who have a perverse faith in the powers of technology development thinking that we will come up with a magic bullet in a few years that will fix everything without society having to make any dramatic changes or sacrifices. The unfortunate thing is that the longer taking appropriate actions is delayed or throttled, the bigger the challenges we face. We can only hope that enough people face reality soon enough to demand action from our leaders. Thanks for listening!
Sorry about the Typo(s), it’s the thoughts that count, not the grammar. Tan.
“Despite all our technology, we can’t control the weather.” This is a quote from the author of the “Little Ice Age,” Brian M. Fagan.” And I agree that the denial of anthropogenic climate change is due in part to motivational reasoning ( also known as confirmation bias ) and cognitive dissonance.
However, one person has been peddling the wonderfully imaginative belief that human caused climate change does not exist. Since the average American has the behavioral tendency to attach oneself to individuals in positions of power, i.e., POTUS, numerous individuals have ( without thinking ) acquired a polarized, psychological stance and proclaim the adopted position as their own considered thought. Where is the appropriate, nonviolent initiative going to come from?
Do you think that as sentient, human beings become exposed to both environmental and psychological stress that delusional thinking becomes more frequent? ” Better to light a single candle than curse the darkness.”