In the Telegraph, Zia Weise writes about “a colder-than-usual patch of water just south of Greenland, nicknamed the ‘cold blob’”. This, claims Weis “has some scientists worried that this slowdown in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is already well under way”. But whatever this blue blob signifies, what this story emerging in the Telegraph reveals is the hands of its new owners.
The hypothesised weakening and perhaps eventual collapse of the Gulf Stream have been haunting alarmist climate prognostications for years. Adherents claim that, as the rest of the world roasts, northwest Europe will be plunged into a frozen hell as the melting of the Arctic ice deprives the oceans of a conveyor that brings warmer waters and winds to the north Atlantic from the southwest.
The claim is a mainstay of those who require stories about ‘tipping points’ to drive a political agenda. Consequently, the hypothesis is vastly more famous than the science underpinning it merits – as is indeed the case with ‘tipping point’ hypotheses in general. And furthermore, such hypotheses therefore generate much greater interest from funding sources, in order to defend narratives from being debunked by, well, science.
In 2024, Denis L. Volkov et al. revealed that observations of the Gulf Stream in Florida, once corrected, revealed that the current “has remained remarkably stable”. An article in Science earlier this year shed light on unequivocal and partial – i.e., cherry-picked – scientific reporting. “Most climate researchers think the AMOC is more resilient than these


Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Given that wind is thought to be the most likely driver of Arctic sea ice coverage, and was propbably responsible for the record low of 2012, then I think Longhurst’s hypothesis about the AMOC seems eminently reasonable.
News stories about what MIGHT happen are not news stories. They are propaganda.
More evidence of the DT committing editorial suicide. Just a vehicle for propaganda, just like all of the MSM. Stopped reading the rag ages ago; looks like it will stay that way.
The good news is, if you read the comments below the articles by Weiss, Stanley and Ambrosia Ever-Preaching is that the reading are having none of it. It’s just a torrent of sceptic abuse.