Detecting a potential collapse of the North Atlantic thermohaline

• Main Authors: Circulation Implications For, Curtis Deutsch, Matthew G. Hall, David F. Bradford, Klaus Keller
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bayesian analysis; North Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation; North Atlantic; North atlantic Thermohaline circulation
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.9.9702; http://www.geosc.psu.edu/~kkeller/keller_etal_snowmass_02.pdf

Many climate models predict a collapse of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) as a result of anthropogenic climate change. The economic damages attending such a global change may be significant. Detecting a THC collapse --- should it happen in the future --- would presumably affect climate policy. We argue that the present ocean observation system would detect a change in the THC intensity only after the point at which climate policy would be able to respond with effective mitigation. This is because the present ocean observation system observes too infrequently and the inferred ocean circulation is too uncertain. Our analysis shows, however, that a THC change could be detected in time to be useful for climate policy by making more frequent observations. A simple cost-benefit analysis suggests that the benefits of such an improved ocean observation system would considerably exceed the costs.