Page 1 of 1

Ocean Current Reversals

PostPosted: Fri 06 Sep 2013 11:56 am
by Peter
Surface currents are driven by wind that is generated by the heat of the Sun. On a global scale heated air near the equator in the low pressure belt known as the doldrums rises and is replaced by air from both north and south of the equator. However, the inflowing air is affected by coriolis forces caused by the rotation of the Earth and trade winds develop either side of the equator that drive strong equatorial ocean currents to the west both to the north and to the south of the equator. There is also a modest equatorial counter current, but this is a consequence of the massive volume of water being driven to the west both to the north and to the south of the equator. This counter current replaces a modest part of the volume of water driven to the west by the wind, the rest being replaced by a combination of surface currents from the north and the south and by an upwelling of cooler water from the deep.

The ocean currents either side of the equator are, like the wind, deflected by the coriolis effect and form clockwise gyres or circular patterns in the major ocean basins in the northern hemisphere and anti-clockwise gyres in the southern hemisphere. Land barriers, of course, also have a significant effect on ocean currents. Thus in the North Atlantic the ocean current flow that is deflected to the north by coriolis forces is both restricted by the east coast of America and redirected by it to the east. This strong warm ocean current, known to us as the Gulf Stream, flows across the North Atlantic and, by carrying much of its heat to the British Isles and Northern Europe, is responsible for the mild temperate climate of this part of the World.

While every experienced offshore sailor knows the wind drives the ocean currents and one would think every oceanographer, climate expert and indeed every earth scientist knows it as well, many now believe in another ultimate driving force. This is because there is clear evidence that the ocean currents have reversed in the comparatively recent past. Not just the Gulf Stream, but the Pacific and Arctic currents show evidence of having reversed. Oceanographers have investigated and reported the reversals and computer modellers have applied themselves to the problem, eventually fixing on the salt density of sea water in polar regions as the ultimate ocean current driver. They suggest that when sea ice forms in polar waters the salt density of the unfrozen water increases and as a consequence it sinks. The deep salty water then moves towards the equator in a motion like a conveyor belt and eventually finds its way to the surface as warm water. The suggestion of the computer modellers is that if the conveyor belt stopped the results are potentially catastrophic and could explain the historic ocean current reversals.

The computer modellers suggest that about 12,900 years ago North Atlantic circulation stopped due to an influx of too much fresh water from melting Ice Age ice upsetting the salt balance and causing a new period of glaciation that they identify as the Younger Dryas climate event (the explanation and date from Climate, Rodale Publishing, 2005, page 26).

This, however, totally disregards the evidence for 2 much more recent reversal in the climate of the British Isles and Western Europe from warm wet to cold dry with the prevailing wind coming from Siberia instead of from the Atlantic. These periods of cold dry prevailing weather are known as the Boreal and Sub-boreal climate phases with the first dated, when I was young, to late in the 2nd millennium BC and the second to the first half of the 1st millennium BC; Velikovsky in Worlds in Upheaval, page 153 references a date of around 700 BC for the Scandinavian climate change. Nowadays the Boreal and Sub-boreal climate phases, that in the UK were identified and dated by peat bog investigations, would appear to be ignored by climate modellers, probably because neither melting ice nor anything else they can conceive can explain climate change at these times.

I believe that inversions of the Earth, driven by external forces as described by Peter Warlow in his book, The Reversing Earth, J M Dent, 1982, were responsible for the reversal of the prevailing climate in Europe during the Boreal and Sub-boreal climate phases. As Warlow explained, an inversion of the Earth reverses ocean currents and during the years the Earth was inverted, Europe could not have experienced a warm Gulf Stream. I understand that it is inconceivable for climate modellers to build an inversion of the Earth into their models, just as it is inconceivable for earth scientists to consider an inversion of the Earth as the explanation for reversals in its magnetic field, despite electrical experts knowing of no way to reverse a magnetic field. However, the ocean current and magnetic field reversals definitely occurred and must be explained.

With Wal Thornhill’s Electric Universe theory providing the electro-magnetic forces needed to drive Warlow inversions, I maintain that my explanation for ocean current reversals is the simplest, indeed the Ockham's Razor solution.