My Return & the amoc
Hi guys…I’m baaaack!! I can’t even put into words how crazy these last 6 months of my life have been. If you didn’t know, I moved to Santa Barbara! After over a year of contemplating leaving Oregon, I finally made the big move and I couldn’t be happier. It has been an absolute whirlwind to say the least but I find myself adjusting and getting more and more comfortable every single day. With that being said, we haven’t chatted since December. Now that I feel like I (mostly) have my shit together, I am going to start posting again. So, let’s get started.
Roughly a year ago, a study came out that predicted the Gulf Stream would collapse in 2025. Now, if you don’t know what the Gulf Stream is, it brings warm water from the Caribbean along the East Coast of America and Canada and takes it up into the North Atlantic. This is why Northern Europe has a temperate climate despite its proximity (and equatorial equivalence) to Canada. The Gulf Stream is critical when it comes to our deep ocean circulation system (the AMOC- Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation). To put it in perspective, if the Gulf Stream were to collapse, this means there would be no energy or carbon exchange from the surface waters to the deep oceans. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but another article came in February confirming that this process has started and the physics of the Atlantic ocean are changing. So, if this were to happen, what would it look like? Well, first of all it would severely disrupt the rains that so many agricultural businesses and people depend on for food in West Africa, India, and South America. It would increase storms, drop temperatures in Europe, and lead to rising sea levels on the East Coast of America. This is one of climate scientists biggest concerns, and is something that all of us should 100% have on our radar. The prediction of the stream collapsing in 2025 is not an accurate estimate and it ranges all the way up until 2095 with a central estimate of 2050. We aren’t completely doomed. Data HAS shown that the stream is sensitive and that changes can be amounted to shifts in wind patterns (higher winds = faster stream, vice versa). But, that does mean that if there is an extreme wind pattern change in the subtropics, that is enough to collapse the AMOC. Okay, let’s take a deep breath together because that was a lot and this totally sucks. What sucks even more is that this is mostly chalked up to carbon emissions, GHGs, and our oceans warming. The world’s worst trifecta. The most that we can do is be conscious about our own carbon footprints. And please fucking vote.
Lastly, my two really cool and smart friends Ella Colby and Aya Aryan have started their own blog! They are truly inspirational and their insights on peace & resilience are truly worth reading. You can find their blog through their Instagram @zaytoonblog :)
