[aCoreyJ]

The thing is it's impossible to prove any single event or change is caused by climate change because we have no way of showing what would be happening if humans hadn't altered the planet.

With weather we can show that severe events have become more common.

I'd have to read the study thoroughly to know for sure but it seems they can show certain effects of the fossil fuels industry but not actual causation of the overall slowdown, which may be impossible to prove.

[kergonath]

“Prove” has different meanings for most people compared to scientists. As you say, it is impossible to prove that something like this, which results from a complex set of conditions and most likely a complex set of causes, results from a single thing. So we speak in probabilities, confidence intervals, and significance. That’s just science speak.

This results from human-made global warming in the same way as a smoker’s lung cancer results from smoking. The conclusion is also the same in both cases: “don’t do it”. Nobody can prove that it will kill, but it drastically increases the odds.

Also, note that this is not at all unexpected. I remember articles in scientific vulgarisation magazines in the 1990s discussion this and the fact that, counter-intuitively, global warming could result in local cooling in Western Europe because of a weakened Gulf Stream. We are still far from that.

[Smoosh]

> local cooling in Western Europe

This would be bad, but now has me wondering, what would happen to all that energy if it doesn't travel up towards the north pole to be cooled? Could we have an extra hot Central Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean?

Does anyone know of any studies which have looked into this?

[myshpa]

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/climate-tipping-po...

[dang]

Single-purpose accounts aren't allowed on HN; nor is using the site primarily for ideological battle. I know these issues are important and your commitment to them is sincere, but we're trying to have a particular kind of conversation here, and this is not a platform suitable for pre-existing agendas.

Since we asked you to stop (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37384170) and you've not only ignored that request but persisted in doing exactly what we asked you not to, I've banned the account.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[myshpa]

> global warming could result in local cooling in Western Europe because of a weakened Gulf Stream. We are still far from that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin...

In July 2023, a paper from a pair of University of Copenhagen researchers suggested that AMOC collapse would most likely happen around 2057, with the 95% confidence range between 2025 - 2095.

It may be a controversial paper, but all probabilities are off after this year. So there is a possibility that it could collapse as soon as two years from now.

[jncfhnb]

Everything is impossible to prove. However fossil fuels are demonstrably casual factors in mechanics that generate the exact effects we see. Effects which correlate extremely well with the timing of our emissions and we’re largely unchanged on such time scales previously.