Global Conveyor Belt 2007: Hamster Wheel Or Hemicuda?

It should already be apparent, without getting into specifics, that the global movement of water masses would be interrelated with the weather patterns that affect continents. Thus any disruption of the MOC is likely to have profound consequences on global climate patterns. Previously, scientists have reported that the MOC is slowing potentially from either surface warming and decreased salinity caused by freshwater runoff from rain and meltwater from glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet. A study in 2004 found that subpolar circulation may have been weaker in the late 1990s than in the late 1970s and 1980s. Another study in 2005 suggested that the Atlantic MOC had slowed by about 30% between 1957 and 2004. This perceived slowdown is considered support for predictions that global warming would disrupt the planet's heat regulation. But, a new set of studies in Science, suggests that normal variation in the MOC may account for previous declines. "We can't strictly say they are wrong, but we can have an alternative explanation," said coauthor Torsten O. Kanzow. Why the difference in findings? Previous studies were based on data points taken at discrete moment in time that masked short-term temporal variations. The new study focuses on several mooring over a span of 12 months starting in March 2004, the researchers found that the flow of water varied from 4.4 to 35.3 megatons per second, the range of values previously used to identify a downward trend...