Forever Earthbound
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Up the Lazy River

6/7/2018

0 Comments

 

            Dewey Droppe was having the time of his life as stormy winds hurled him across the Midwest.  With trillions of his buddies Dewey wreaked havoc on Louisville in a deluge that caused extensive flooding during the wettest February ever recorded. Then it was down the storm drain and out into the raging Ohio River.  Dewey washed down the Mississippi and spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. What a ride! 
 
            Lounging there for a few days, Dewey waited to get picked up by the Gulf Stream when the excitement would begin again.  Sure enough, a few days later he felt that tentative tug and was drawn toward the current.  “Oh boy! Now for a speedy ride around Florida, up the Eastern Seaboard, and into the icy climes of the Arctic Ocean,” he mused.
 
            But after a day or so, Dewey knew something was wrong; he was barely moving at all.  The anticipated rush of droplets all jostling ahead of one another was more like a molasses slick languidly lolling toward the Florida coast.  
 
            “What’s going on?” Dewey wondered when suddenly… SWOOSH!  Without warning, Dewey was scooped aboard a passing ship, ogled under a microscope, and shelved inside a beaker.  Even more strange, as chance would have it, the crew members were asking themselves that very same question – why was this normally swift current moving so slowly?
 
           The oceanographers aboard this research vessel were investigating the mysteriously slowing North Atlantic Current and wondering if it had anything to do with extreme weather events like the recent Louisville storms.  Dewey learned that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is the “conveyor belt” of the ocean that exchanges warm equatorial water with cold water from the Arctic.  But today this temperature exchange is happening at a lower rate than any time in the past few thousand years most likely because of the torrent of fresh water melting off the Greenland ice sheet.  If the slowing continues and reaches a tipping point, the AMOC could simply shut down with potentially dramatic and unwelcome changes in the climate.
 
           “So this lazy current and the increase of extreme weather events ARE connected!  A warming atmosphere accelerates both of them,” Dewey realized. “Seems like these humans could save themselves a lot of grief by taking action to slow that warming.  After all, this is their only home where they’re forever…Earthbound.”
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I'm interested in the topics of sustainability and climate change especially in regards to our local area in southwest Wisconsin.

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013

    Categories

    All
    Carbon Fee And Dividend
    Carbon Sequestration
    Climate Change
    Extreme Weather
    Health
    Local Food
    Lymes Disease
    Mercury Pollution
    Renewable Energy

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.