Global warming alarms not worth their salt

By Marc Sheppard

Two years ago scientists warned that the North Atlantic Ocean had become much less salty over the past 50 years due to global warming. This year, scientists warn that the North Atlantic Ocean has become more salty over the past 50 years due to -- guess what?

In June of 2005, Live Science reported the lower salt levels, attributing that:

"Climate changes in the Northern Hemisphere have melted glaciers and brought more rain, dumping more fresh water into the oceans, according to the analysis."

Alarms sounded worldwide of the calamitous slowing impact fresher sea water would have on global ocean currents -- which some shrieked would enshroud Europe in a mini ice age. Gasp!

But according to an August, 2007 report from New Scientist, Tim Boyer of the US National Oceanographic Data Center and his team have concluded that the trend changed over a decade ago, explaining that the:

"upper ocean is warming in the North Atlantic, so it stands to reason that there should be more evaporation, making waters more salty."

Boyer says that, due to global warming, the seas have been getting saltier since the 1990s and are now "about as salty as they were in the 1970s."

So, which is it, guys? Isn't this all "settled science?" Ocean salinity would seem a rather absolute and quantifiable concept, compared to, say, global mean temperature flux, no?

Boyer also shunts the previous alarms by reassuring us that the so-called global ocean conveyor belt is in no danger of shutting down.

Unfortunately, neither is the big green scare machine.

Hat Tip: Benny Peiser