The Sound Of Settled Science

Another star of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth has left the building;

The media release for the 2005 Nature study ominously read, “The ocean currents that help to maintain Northern Europe’s relatively clement climate are weakening, according to a new survey carried out in the Atlantic Ocean. The new data shows that the system of currents that moves warm waters north and returns cooler waters to more southerly latitudes has weakened by 30 percent since 1957.”
Researchers aboard a 2004 voyage led by the UK National Oceanography Centre’s Harry Bryden surveyed the strength of currents at various depths at latitude of 25 degrees north. Although Bryden found no change to the Gulf Stream — the northward flow of warm water near the surface — he reported a 50 percent reduction in the amount of cold, deep waters flowing southwards and a 50 percent increase in the amount of water recirculating within subtropical regions without reaching higher latitudes. These changes, according to Bryden, showed that less water is completing a full circuit of the entire Atlantic current system.
The Nature study spawned a tidal wave of scary headlines around the world that December, including “Scientists Say Slow Atlantic Currents Could Mean a Colder Europe” (New York Times); “Fears of Big Freeze as Scientists Detect Slower Gulf Stream” (The Independent, UK); “Shifting Currents Renew Fears of Freezing” (The Gazette, Montreal); “Europe Faces Feal Day After Tomorrow” (Courier Mail, Australia); and “Ocean Flow Findings Indicate Harsher Winters for Europe” (Press Trust of India).
[…]
But now Bryden’s finding has been exposed as a nothing burger — although this should have come as no surprise.
Bryden worked with only very limited oceanic data — five sets of ship-based temperature and salinity measurements from the north Atlantic collected during research cruises between 1957 and 2004. His prediction of a much larger slowdown of the Atlantic current than made by climate model simulations is the sort of extreme outlier result that often occurs with the use of incomplete and inadequate data.

More at BBC.

24 Replies to “The Sound Of Settled Science”

  1. And the enviromentalists wackos will start their rediclous blabbering about this and ENVROMENTAL DEFENSE will produce some rediculous TV ads and AL GORE,DAVID SUZUKI and JAMES LOVELOCK will get up on their soap boxes and preach their usial poppycock about GLOBAL WARMING we dont need their idiotic banter

  2. all those NASA scientists, applying their secret algorithms to “adjust” raw climate data so it shows what they want, not what is actually happening.
    Shouldn’t secret algorithms that prove global warming be called AlGoreithms ?

  3. Shooting holes in the Righteous Reverend Gore’s and Doctor of Fruit Flies, Suzuki’s Global Warming Scam/Hoax is starting to sink their ship early, cutting their bask in fame rather short.
    Looks like the real scientific experts on the subject just let them roll, now they’re coming at them with truth. This truth will be the real “Inconvenient Truth” for the likes of Gore and Suzuki et al.

  4. As a scientist I am not surprised. In reality much of the problem is the media hype. Real scientists are much more cautious when you actually listen to what they are saying.

  5. Two comments that I can add just to clarify the discussion. The group who is reporting the new findings is the same group who reported the old. Why Mr. Milloy left this off his post is beyond me but again I see science functioning as it should.
    In regards to Mr. Gore’s movie, as I have said I have not seen it, but from what I read over at CEI I do not get the impression that he quotes Bryden’s initial study. What he does say is that freshwater could cause a slowdown of the THC which is pretty well accepted. I do not believe that he says it is happening.
    John

  6. John Cross:
    [i]The group who is reporting the new findings is the same group who reported the old. Why Mr. Milloy left this off his post is beyond me but again I see science functioning as it should. [/i]
    “Even though Bryden wisely backed off his alarmist claims by mid-2006 after reviewing a year’s worth of the new measurements, his retraction garnered virtually no media attention.”
    or more briefly, please read the article.
    And I agree with you on the wasting of time watching the Gore movie. Too bad the sheeple will hold it as the new gospel.

  7. Dkjones. Thanks for the tip, but I do try to make a habit of reading the articles. Perhaps you could show me where it says that Bryden was the author of the new study. The quote that you gave does not do this but your comment seems to imply that it does.
    Regards,
    John

  8. Ahh, Stevy Milloy also believes that second hand smoking doesn’t exist. But, if you get a big cheque from big tobacco and oil that makes it easier to say what ever they want.
    I think he’d fit right in here at Kool-aid Kate’s Klub of whiners and deniers.

  9. Another dupe of the oil companies. Just because a fact is not true does not make it incorrect.

  10. OMG! What if the ocean currents slow down by 31%! We’re all gonna…
    Oh wait, they could just as easily be exactly the same as they’ve always been, we just don’t know. Oh well.

  11. “Just because a fact is not true does not make it incorrect.”
    MMeat, what an amazing statement! Please elaborate; can’t wait for some more examples of untrue facts. Are you being sarcastic? I hope so.

  12. “Just because a fact is not true does not make it incorrect.”
    “MMeat, what an amazing statement! Please elaborate; can’t wait for some more examples of untrue facts. Are you being sarcastic? I hope so.”
    [Posted by: Shamrock at August 17, 2007 8:22 PM ]
    Hell, it worked for Dan Rather.
    fake but accurate ===> untrue but correct
    You simply must smoke what they are smoking, then it all begins to make sense.

  13. My only question regarding the original report … if the Gulf Stream was still flowing north at the same rate …. where was the water going if not circulating back. Don’t things have to balance out?

  14. “Don’t things have to balance out?”
    [Posted by: DocR at August 18, 2007 2:41 AM ]
    The earth has been working at balancing things out for over 4 billion years.
    Eccept this present period. According to the AGW adherents ‘ya-but, this-time-is-different’.

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