Tides of change

Record-setting heat in the ocean could trigger unpredictable consequences, including... the cold?

The ocean plays a huge role in our day-to-day experience here on land. It’s responsible for many things, including producing almost all of the rain that falls from the sky. It also distributes heat around the globe - regulating what would otherwise be a super hot equator and a colder Europe. For these reasons, the ocean is a particularly important variable in our changing climate.

The temperature of the sea fluctuates over time. Thanks to ice cores and other natural records, scientists can tell what temperatures and precipitation must have been like thousands of years into the past - including before, during, and after times of oceanic temperature changes. They have found that global and local climates can change drastically over a couple of decades if ocean temperatures and behaviors change quickly. For example, if cool ice water rapidly melts into the ocean, it could slow or stop the currents that keep Europe warm.

If you remember The Day After Tomorrow, the 2004 flick about global warming going theatrically bad and causing an ice age, you might recognize the theory behind this phenomenon. Don’t get me wrong, 99% of the movie is complete Hollywood BS, but there is a little bit of scientific precedent to be found in the film. The movie is based on the global warming theory in which rapidly thawing polar ice caps could slow or stop the direction of ocean currents (the same currents that currently warm Europe), and cool Europe by around 9 degrees F over a couple of decades.

The Day After Tomorrow, directed by the same guy who brought us other doomsday movies like Independence Day, Moonfall, and 2012, depicts the same phenomenon causing a complete reversal of the currents (which would be a bit dramatic) throwing the world into another Ice Age in just a few days - it’s great television, but not at all realistic.

In reality, this phenomenon would look a lot different and has already happened to some extent.

8,000 years ago, as Earth emerged from the last Ice Age, cool ice water quickly melted into the oceans, slowing the currents that warmed Europe and left the continent abnormally cool compared to other parts of the Earth. Professor Maria Scheel of Aarhus University says that as the earth warmed out of the Ice Age, water levels rose by six feet over 200 years, and Europe was as much as 9 degrees F cooler than usual. This spurred rainfall in Europe and droughts in parts of Africa.

Today, Europe is warmed by water that flows from the Gulf of Mexico at the ocean’s surface as cool, dense water flows in the opposite direction deeper in the ocean - like a conveyor belt. Meanwhile, ocean temperatures have been worrying climatologists for decades, but as of late, the ocean has been reaching new levels of heat:

The ocean is critical to heating and cooling the climate. Acting like a giant solar panel, the ocean absorbs heat and uses that energy in fascinating ways - manipulating the atmosphere and our climate dramatically. The ocean typically warms during an El Nino, but this heating is the result of more than just El Nino. When you add massive amounts of CO2 to the equation, it makes the ocean and atmosphere capable of more extreme manipulation.

As the ocean warms at an alarming rate, we don’t know exactly how everything might play out. Sea ice recession is reaching record extremes, but how fast will sea ice melt moving forward? Will the ocean continue to warm after El Nino is over this year? How will this unprecedented warming affect global and local temperatures and precipitation in the short and long terms?

Scheel argues:

The future of the North Atlantic remains the subject of intense scientific debate. One recent study found that, as temperatures rise and the Greenland ice sheet melts, the Atlantic current could shut down this century, though those findings were met with skepticism. The new study offers additional evidence that present-day melting could lead to a slowdown in ocean currents.

Of the new study, Rush said, “We have shown that rapid ice-sheet retreat, which may occur in Greenland depending on the path of future fossil fuel emissions, can cause a range of significant climatic effects that would have very worrying consequences.”

These consequences are too numerous to list in full but include drought, famine, mass migration, disease, and so on. Polarization and panic over immigration could increase, and Europe could be thrown into a cold period while Africa could be burdened with unforgiving drought and heat. It won’t all happen in a week like in The Day After Tomorrow, but it’s not theatrical to say we’ve not seen the worst of climate change yet.

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In other news:

Food Deserts Serious Reality In Parts Of Rural New Mexico

The Shelby Report, a national grocery news website, reached out to me to ask about the state of food deserts in New Mexico. I talked about growing up working at my grandfather's grocery store in Moriarty, NM, the challenges of food insecurity in car-centric cities, and the business environment that small, independent grocers have to navigate today.

Here’s a brief excerpt from their report:

With the majority of the population living in just a few markets, Austin Anaya, an economist analyst based in Albuquerque, said residents outside of these areas often have few quality choices on where to shop.

This wasn’t always the case, noted Anaya, who pointed out that in the past 50 years the landscape of New Mexico grocery stores has dramatically changed.

In addition to studying the economy, Anaya’s connection to the state’s grocery industry runs deep. His grandfather owned Mike’s Friendly Store for some 60 years in rural Moriarty, population 1,800, where Anaya worked as a young man. 

When his grandfather retired in 2011, no one was interested in buying his store because by then Walmart and several Dollar and Family Dollar stores had opened in the area. 

Anaya said there is one independent grocery store in Moriarty, but smaller stores in towns like Estancia (15 miles south of Moriarty) that don’t have the volume to participate with a co-op have died out. Belonging to a co-op in New Mexico, he added, is what has allowed many of the remaining independent retailers in the state to compete against the larger chains.

You can read the full report here.