Ireland day 0568. Wednesday 19 April 2023- Mansion House
Commentary
(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).
Val was at work so I spent the first part of the morning doing (as seems to be my habit these days) some Spanish homework. Considering the amount of effort I am putting in, I seem to be making disappointingly little progress. It was so much easier to learn stuff when I was young! I wish I had learned Spanish (as well as French) at school. Perhaps that way I would be able to remember it.
Once that was done for the time being, I got my stuff together and went to the gym. Very enjoyable and I decided to risk a short sauna afterwards – the hip seemed fine with it. After lunch, I read for a bit then wrote a few more paragraphs of my paper for the Geol Soc.
But the main event today was an evening discussion on “Ocean Circulation, Tipping Points and the Public Climate Debate”, given by Prof Stefan Rahmstorf of Potsdam University, and being hosted by the Environmental protection Agency (EPA) at the Mansion House in Dublin. The talk was about changes in ocean flows in the Atlantic Ocean (i.e. the the Atlantic Meridional Overturn Current or AMOC) and what the consequences of such alterations might be. Part of my interest in going, I have to admit, was because I have walked past the Mansion House (in Dawson Street) many times and always thought that it looked impressive – so I wanted to look have a look inside. Anyway it was an excellent evening, and the Mansion House was every bit as impressive from the inside as it looks from the outside.
In the talk, Rahmstorf described the work which shows that the AMOC has weakened by about 15% compared to historic norms, and how the likelihood is increasing that it is reaching a tipping point where it may switch off completely. It’s happening mainly because of increased rainfall in the North Atlantic resulting from global warming (and evaporation) in the tropics. This reduces ocean water density and alters the flow of the current. An ironic consequence of this global warming phenomenon is that the North Atlantic is cooling and a small number of countries – Ireland included – may actually get cooler in the coming years as the rest of the world fries.
Perhaps this is what happened in the thousand year long cooling event which dramatically affected Ireland’s climate in the Younger Dryas period, 11,000 years ago.
Excellently presented, very sobering, and slightly depressing.
Today’s photos (click to enlarge)
Interactive map
(No map today)