doodledee

So there's the global warming stuff, then. My understanding is that it's supposed to be pretty bad when/if it happens. Nobody actually knows how bad, but depending on who you listen to, we could be dealing with some seriously whacked out global climate changes. Stay tuned for an example of what might happen. But before we get to that, it's time to flashback to my days as a geologist-in-training.

The whole idea behind why global warming is going to trash the earth is rooted in the behavior of the ocean's currents. Right now, when things are "normal", the world's oceans are hooked together in what is basically a big ass conveyer belt. Warm water moves northward in the Atlantic where it gets colder (and denser) and eventually it sinks. The cold sinking water then flows around the earth, until [in a nutshell] it gets over to the Pacific and warms and rises and starts its long trip back to the North Atlantic. Here's a diagram. Wee!

Ok, now here's the bad part: if global warming is true and the earth actually does start to warm up, a bunch of ice in the North Atlantic will start melting and draining into the ocean. Combine that with a [predicted] large increase in the amount of rainfall in that area, and suddenly all that warm water that rode up on the magic conveyer belt won't be able to get cold enough and dense enough to sink.

No sinking? Conveyor belt stops.

No conveyor belt? No cozy warm water moving into the Northern Hemisphere.

No cozy warm water? Northsiders start getting colder. Burr.

Seems backwards, but it's true. Global warming stops the conveyor belt and we all actually get colder. Who knew?

Crazier still, all this can happen over a super short period of time. Maybe even short as in like 10 years short. Buckle up.

So back to the details of what might happen. The latest thing I read was an interesting - if not somewhat frightening - article in Forbes about what some eggheads in the Pentagon are predicting. It was neat because they didn't just focus on the environmental impacts, they also talked about the geopolitical impacts. And really, that's the worst part. We can all put on a scarf and try and stay warm, but that's not really gonna help us when Mexico invades over access to shared water resources. Or when Pakistan, India and China start going nuclear because they're all starving.

I won't bother pasting in huge chunks of the article here. Go read it for yourself. It's only three pages. And it's freaky deaky.

Oceans are cool.

The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare [Forbes]
Thermohaline Circulation Explained [SOC]