• fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
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    10 months ago

    While I’m not defending them (I don’t know enough about this to go one way or another), it seems the semi-empty ships return from Greenland to Denmark, and there are already ships going between Denmark and the UAE.

    As far as temps, my understanding is a lot of it has to do with the AMOC:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-29226-8

    In today’s warming climate, the persistent North Atlantic cooling anomaly off the southeast coast of Greenland is thought to be caused by the accelerating input of meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and considered an indicator of a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Modelling studies suggest that increased freshwater input from Greenland has the potential to slow down AMOC in the future, thus substantially weakening heat transport to the North Atlantic and potentially driving positive ice sheet-ocean feedbacks

    This is tied to the fact that while the ice may keep things cooler, as it’s already broken off, it will put more freshwater into the saltwater more quickly, which is bad for the AMOC.

    https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/amoc.html

    If the AMOC does continue to slow down, however, it could have far-reaching climate impacts. For example, if the planet continues to warm, freshwater from melting ice at the poles would shift the rain belt in South Africa, causing droughts for millions of people. It would also cause sea level rise across the U.S. East Coast.

    I am no expert here, for context, I just found all this really interesting so did some digging.