Connection between Freezing Europe and the BP spill

Andrew Mason

The unusually cold weather in Europe must be related to the gulf stream which gives Europe its normally balmy temperatures as far north as the Arctic Circle in Norway.

It was noticed this summer that the gulf stream had slowed down to almost a stop. Some scientists attributed this to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

I have not been able to find an explanation connecting the BP spill to the drop in flow in the gulf stream. What is the mechanism connecting the two?

AM

Evo

Hi Andrew, I'm afraid those links are not appropriate sources, so were removed. I will see what I can come up with. IIRC, the BP spill had nothing to do with the current, it was the current that prevented the spill from moving out of the gulf.

Here are three from NOAA. They stopped tracking the trajectory in August after it was found that the spill did not enter the North Atlantic conveyor belt.

http://response.restoration.noaa.gov...topic_topic)=1

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=us

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dhos/altimetry.php

Xnn

Freezing weather in Europe?

For starters the Arctic Oscillation is offscale low and has been for a while:



Notice that NOAA needs to redraw the scale on this index; it's that low.

Anyhow, the extreme AO may be caused by a lack of sea ice,
which also happens to currently be at record low levels:

Attached Thumbnails

   

Andrew Mason

No one is suggesting that the oil left the Gulf. It is suggested that the spill stopped the flow of the Gulf Stream. That warm water from the Gulf keeps Europe warm. Here is a better link to a letter published by Dr. Gianluigi Zangari, a theoretical physicist at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Italy who warned of the disruption to the Gulf Stream. He does not suggest the mechanism by which spilled oil stops the Gulf Stream flow. I was just wondering if anyone could explain why the spill would affect the ocean current.

AM

Borek

I can't speak for other parts of Europe, but what I see here is not different from what I remember as a standard winter back in sixties, seventies and early eigthies. It was nineties and last decade that spoiled us into thinking winter is not what it is.

In short - I don't see anything unusual about the winter in Poland this year.

Studiot

Absolutely.

There is far too much rubbish, based upon inappropriate timescales, promulgated.

When we don't know or don't yet have enough information we should have the guts to say so rather than guessing.

billiards

Speculative at best.

Consider how long it would take a disturbance in the Gulf to reach Northern Europe.

They are about 6,000 km apart, the blast happened about 6 months ago, so we are asking that the disturbance traveled 1000 km a month. Is that plausible? I doubt it.

See xnn's post for a better explanation of the recent cold snap.

Andrew Mason

So are you saying that the cold winter in Europe is not related to the stoppage in the Gulf Stream flow? Or are you saying that the Gulf Stream flow has not stopped? Are the satellite data showing that the Gulf Stream changed dramatically between April and July of this year false or being misinterpreted? Where is the rubbish in the simple observation that the Gulf Stream changed significantly this year?

It seems to me that it does not matter whether the winter in Europe is colder than it has ever been. There have likely been other winters that were colder. But unquestionably, Europe's weather is related to the Gulf Stream. One look at the palm trees in Penzance will tell you that. The Gulf Stream affects the Jet Stream, so it can have an effect around the world. All I am interested in is this: "how does an oil spill in the Gulf affect the Gulf current?".

[Note: the BP spill dumped 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf (700 billion litres or 700 million cubic metres or .9 of a cubic kilometres). The Gulf of Mexico contains about 2.4 million cubic kilometres of water.]

AM

Andrew Mason

The Gulf Stream is a 50 mile wide river of warm water travelling across the North Atlantic at a speed of about 4 miles an hour. The disturbance is the stoppage of the Gulf loop current, which is the engine that drives that flow, apparently. The disturbance does not travel at all. The effect of the disturbance, however, would propagate across the Atlantic immediately. Without the engine of the Gulf loop current, the flow peters out in the mid-Altantic. Apparently the loop current has disappeared. The suggestion is that it is due to the BP spill. I am just having difficulty understanding how the two might be connected.

AM

billiards

I am yet to be convince of the importance of the loop current -- for the purpose of this debate we must state clearly that we are implicitly assuming that it is very important in the transfer of heat from the Gulf to Europe -- the whole debate hinges on that.


Let me assume that it really is very important. I have further concerns:

I see from the data (http://www.associazionegeofisica.it/OilSpill.pdf (Fig 1)) that an eddy has indeed broken off from the main loop, but it is clear to me that there is still a loop there, and so I am not sure I can agree with the letter when it says:

Let me assume that the loop current really has been destroyed. What caused it? Could it be the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill? According to the letter:

hmmm... dubious at best.

To top it off, I remain unconvinced that the disturbance of the loop current would be felt immediately in Northern Europe. We must be clear that the assertion that recent cold weather in Europe is somehow tied to the Oil Spill is not made in the letter, and so as far as I can tell is the assertion of Andrew Mason. This assertion to my mind is built on a fragile hypothesis and may indeed be physically impossible.

Studiot

Well Andrew I am not saying I am asking

Can we prove the link, based upon the available data?

Do we even have enough data?

How about the unexpected winter emergency in eastern and mid western USA?
As I understand it the North Atlantic Drift Current ( commonly but erroneously called the gulf stream) diverts energy from the eastern USA towards Europe.
If, as you seem to contend, this has diminished or even stopped, where has this energy gone and why is the eastern USA also experiencing a harder winter?

Whilst I know the earth's two fluid environments are inextricably linked, I understand the jet stream to be an integral part of the atmospheric convection cell which would still exist on a totally dry planet?

Xnn

When ice forms out of sea water, salt is mostly excluded from the ice. The left over brine, is very dense and sinks downward.

The North Atlantic Drift is a thermohaline driven current. That is to say, as warmers waters cool and eventually freeze to form sea ice, they become denser and sink. It is the temperature and salinity difference that are the driving force for the North Atlantic drift.

That it has diminished is due primarily to the lack of sea ice formation. The shortfall in sea ice is pronounced off the coast of Greenland, a deep water formation site.

Andrew Mason

I am not asserting that the recent cold weather is somehow tied to the BP spill. I am asking if anyone can explain the mechanism, or a mechanism, by which oil in the Gulf of Mexico of roughly .3 parts per million can stop ocean currents such as the Gulf loop current which drives the Gulf stream.

If the BP spill has somehow caused the Gulf loop current to disappear it is certainly plausible that this has contributed to the unusual winter Europe is having this year. That is simply a conclusion one can reach by: a) observing the non-controversial fact that the normally moderate climate in Europe depends heavily upon warm ocean water in the North Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico reaching European shores, and b) reading the reports that satellite data from the summer has shown that the Gulf loop current has disappeared and that a drastic reduction in the flow of the Gulf Stream has occurred.

I am not saying that the BP spill has caused the Gulf loop to disappear. But I am intrigued by the possibility. My problem is that I don't understand how an oil spill would cause this.

AM

AlephZero

Absolutely. In 1963, there was sea ice around a significant amount of the UK coastline. I know, because I saw some of it myself. There were a couple of winters in the 1980s with disruptive amounts of snow before Christmas. Going back to 1947, there was snow cover in the east of the UK that lasted more than 12 weeks, with drifts up to 10 feet deep for much of that time. (This was at altitudes of less than 100ft ASL, not on the top of some mountain)

billiards

OK.

But, does the oil spill really cause this?

Perhaps we can rule that out before we waste our time trying to explain the how?

billiards

link please...?


Again.... this really is a BIG statement so I need a link...

Sounds more plausible, can we have a link to show less sea ice? And a physical explanation as to why that might stop the Gulf stream?

Also, de we know why we have less sea ice this year?

geophysics10

The gulf loop current is a natural equilibirum system but also a nonlinear system which is dependent on many variables: temperature, salinity, wind, flora and fauna, changing boundary conditions, the list goes on. And, the issue with boundary conditions of a localized earth system is that they are connected to all other localized earth systems: it's one big messy earth system. What they are observing is an increasing number of gulf loop fractures in correlation with the oil propagating across the gulf. These fractures are identified by characteristic eddy loop currents which form from primary loop current fractures. Its a simple matter of the system being given new initial conditions, possibly the oil. But its possible there is very little/no physical correlation.

The Calming Effect, a well known and documented effect of oil on water, has a tremendous attenuating effect on wind surface wave formation. This is primarily due to the Gibbs surface elasticity of the oil monolayer, secondarily the surface tension of the oil monolayer, and negligibly the viscosity of the oil monolayer.

video of calming effect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00PPPt7EJqo

Further
Gibbs surface elasticity & calming effect: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AmJPh..75..407B

Gibbs elasticity:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/...3/fulltext.pdf

The biological impact of the oil affects biochemistry, chemistry, physical properties and ultimately thermodynamic properties of the region.

Is the data correlation enough to announce this publicly as being related? I don't think so. But I think there are plenty of rabbits to chase down the hole. Nonlinear dynamics of this magnitude is anyone's guessing game.