Meet Wally Broecker

[Dogmudgeon]

I've been posting the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's link on their Abrupt Climate Change work that I have been neglecting to give props to the man who is the modern Colossus of the field, Wallace Broecker.

He isn't from Woods Hole, but from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.

Broecker is the scientist who, in the late 60s and early 70s, resurrected the theory, which had been bouncing around since the 1920s, that Ice Ages were initiated by oceanic current "collapse". These currents were better studied starting with the International Geophysical Year in 1958, when a large number of oceanic condition sensing buoys were set in the Atlantic. Sadly, a lack of funding has crippled modern efforts to understand what have become known as Thermohaline Circulation "conveyer belt" currents.

I read one or two of Broecker's early papers when I was in college, way back just after the dinosaurs had gone extinct (this would have been around 1979). He had become semi-famous then after we had several bad winters in a row, and got a little bit of press for his work on climate change. His work changed the way I thought about world ecology, especially since it was the first scientific literature I had read that didn't treat ecology in either static or over-simplified terms.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute -- WHOI -- is headed by Robert Gagosian, a world-class scientist himself. WHOI has done the "heavy lifting" of confirming Broecker's theories about oceanic circulation and its atmospheric effects -- and answered many of the questions Broecker proposed but had been unable to address previously.

(Yes, I'm oversimplifying, too, and to a scandalous degree, because literally hundreds of scientists and students have been involved in the work, and I'm sure I've missed several who should be up there with Broecker and Gagosian in the investigators' pantheon. But this piece of science-fan boosterism should give anyone who is interested a foothold on an increasingly detailed areas of scientific study.)

Here is a link to one of Dr. Broecker's more recent papers, written for both academics and scientifically-literate laypeople, called What If the Conveyor Were to Shut Down? Reflections on a Possible Outcome of the Great Global Experiment -- and be sure to check out Figure 5.

Incidentally, Dr. Broecker has a relative who is an activist who posts at DU. Broecker is, too, to an extent, and he was one of Al Gore's sources and semi-mentors in Earth In The Balance. I'm not going to "name names", although the DUer is certainly proud of him, but for those who think that scientists are shut away in their ivory towers, beholden to corporate patronage, this should provide evidence that some of them actually do live in the real world.

Robert Gagosian. Wallace Broecker. And many others. We really do have some scientists who refuse to be bought off. Whether they are the prophets of our doom, or keep us vigilant and ready for unforseen consequences of our folly, we will determine by our actions -- or our disastrous negligence.

--bkl

[Maestro]

1. His theories have been...

getting more serious thought lately. Heck, they have even made it into mainstream media such as the Discovery Science Channel. While I am not a scientist by any means, I can understand his theory and it certainly seems plausible. So now the question is, is global warming being accelerated by human (mis)use of fossil fuels or is it part of the natural Earth climate cycle? I say it is the former.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Not really a toss-up

I think that the reality is that the Ice Age cycle is a natural phenomenon, AND that human activity has triggered it possibly several thousands of years early.

Already, after only about 175 years of industrialism, we've managed to push the CO₂ levels to nearly 400 ppm, as high as it's been since the Permian Extinction a quarter of a billion years ago -- and that may have been caused by (an) impactor(s) and/or solar flare activity.

The scariest part about Broecker's theory is that it is falling into place much more readily than even Broecker thought it would. If you read the article I linked to, you'll see how he criticized himself a little for thinking some of his proponants in the scientific press "went too far" with the prophesizing. These days, he's been in the position of "catching up" with many of his followers!

--bkl