Atlantic Conveyer RAPID Programme

"Finding a reliable and cost-effective way to monitor the Atlantic heat conveyor is a primary aim of the RAPID programme. The team of Prof. Harry Bryden and Dr. Stuart Cunningham of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton are tackling this problem in their RAPID project 'Monitoring the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 25°N'.

http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/rapid/sis/moc_monitor.php

http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/rapid/sis/moc_monitor.php#media

In December 2005 a paper was published in Nature 438, 655-657
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7068/full/nature04385.html
Nature 438, 655-657 (1 December 2005) doi:10.1038/nature04385
Slowing of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation at 25° N
Harry L. Bryden et al.


However Science now reports a contrary view

Science 17 November 2006:Vol. 314. no. 5802, p. 1064
DOI: 10.1126/science.314.5802.1064a

News of the Week
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE:
False Alarm: Atlantic Conveyor Belt Hasn't Slowed Down After All
Richard A. Kerr

"A closer look at the Atlantic Ocean's currents has confirmed what many oceanographers suspected all along: There's no sign that the ocean's heat-laden "conveyor" is slowing."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/5802/1064a

"The first year of RAPID array observations has now been analyzed, and the next European ice age looks to be a ways off. At a RAPID conference late last month in Birmingham, U.K., Bryden reported on the first continuous gauging of conveyor flow. Variations up and down within 1 year are as large as the changes seen from one snapshot to the next during the past few decades, he found. "He observed a lot of variability," says oceanographer Martin Visbeck of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science at the University of Kiel in Germany, who attended the meeting; so much variability that "more than 95% of the scientists at the workshop concluded that we have not seen any significant change of the Atlantic circulation to date," wrote Visbeck in a letter to the British newspaper the Guardian. [Monday, 30th October 2006]"

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1934904,00.html

CSP: Doing it with mirrors?

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,1957908,00.html

Scientists say the global energy crisis can be solved by using the desert sun
Ashley Seager
Monday November 27, 2006
The Guardian (c)

"In the desert, just across the Mediterranean sea, is a vast source of energy that holds the promise of a carbon-free, nuclear-free electrical future for the whole of Europe, if not the world."

"Two German scientists, Dr Gerhard Knies and Dr Franz Trieb [Email: franz.trieb@dlr.de], calculate that covering just 0.5% of the world's hot deserts with a technology called concentrated solar power (CSP) would provide the world's entire electricity needs, with the technology also providing desalinated water to desert regions as a valuable byproduct, as well as air conditioning for nearby cities.

"Focusing on Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, they say, Europe should build a new high-voltage direct current electricity grid to allow the easy, efficient transport of electricity from a variety of alternative sources. Britain could put in wind power, Norway hydro, and central Europe biomass and geo-thermal. Together the region could provide all its electricity needs by 2050 with barely any fossil fuels and no nuclear power. This would allow a 70% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from electricity production over the period."

See also
http://www.dlr.de/tt/med-csp

MED-CSP
Concentrating Solar Power
for the Mediterranean Region -
The complete report can be downloaded as pdf

http://www.dlr.de/tt/trans-csp
http://www.menarec.org/