Monday, July 31, 2023

Geese in 'good condition' after landing on contaminated lagoon: Imperial CEO

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

The latest in what has been a string of environmental incidents at Canadian oilsands sites was addressed Friday by the CEO of Imperial Oil Ltd.

On a conference call with analysts to discuss Imperial's second-quarter financial results, Brad Corson spoke briefly about the 12 Canada geese that were recently found stained with oil after landing on a lagoon at the company's Mahihkan plant northwest of Cold Lake, Alta.

The incident was made public Monday by the Alberta Energy Regulator, which said the lagoon had been contaminated by an inadvertent release of an estimated 900 litres — approximately six barrels — of crude oil.

“I’m disappointed that this has occurred. And we will be making every effort to learn and apply any preventative measures that are identified," said Corson.

He said all of the geese have been removed from the lagoon and taken to a specialist site for cleaning and rehabilitation.

"We are monitoring their status and they are currently in good condition," Corson said, adding the cleanup of the oil is almost complete and additional measures to deter wildlife from entering the area — including decoys and wildlife cannons — have been put in place.

The Canada geese incident comes on the heels of the ongoing environmental challenges Imperial has faced this year at its Kearl oilsands site.

In May 2022, workers discovered discoloured water seeping near a tailings (industrial waste) pond on the north of the mine site. That substance was later found to be groundwater contaminated by tailings.

The following February, another 5.3 million litres of wastewater escaped from a containment pond, prompting the regulator to issue an environmental protection order.

Area First Nations and governments were angered they weren't kept informed about the investigation into the first release. Three probes have been launched into that nine-month delay — one by a House of Commons committee, another by Alberta's information commissioner and the third by the Alberta Energy Regulator's board of directors.

On Friday, Corson said Imperial has completed the construction of mitigation infrastructure aimed at improving its existing seepage interception system.

"These expansions included additional drainage structures, pumping wells and vacuum systems," he said.

"We are committed to rebuilding the trust we have lost and as you can see, we have been working very hard to correct the issue and ensure it does not happen again.”

In addition to the Imperial episodes, several other Canadian oilsands companies have reported environmental incidents lately.

In May, 32 dead waterfowl were found at two separate oilsands tailings ponds operated by Suncor Energy Inc.

Last month, Cenovus Energy Inc. was issued a clean-up order by the Alberta Energy Regulator after more than 1,000 litres of diesel spilled from a temporary generator into a northern Alberta lake.

On Friday, Imperial Oil reported it earned $675 million in its second quarter, down from $2.41 billion in the same quarter a year earlier, driven by lower refining margins and planned maintenance work.

The company said its profit amounted to $1.15 per diluted share for the quarter, down from $3.63 per diluted share a year earlier, while total revenue and other income amounted to $11.82 billion, down from $17.31 billion for the same period in 2022.

Production averaged 363,000 gross oil-equivalent barrels per day, down from 413,000 in the same quarter last year.

Meanwhile, refinery throughput averaged 388,000 barrels per day, compared with 412,000 a year ago, as refinery capacity utilization fell to 90 per cent compared with 96 per cent a year earlier.

Corson also told analysts on Friday's call that the company's Strathcona Renewable Diesel project, which will be Canada’s largest renewable diesel facility, passed a significant milestone in May with contractors starting construction work.

He said it remains on track for a 2025 startup and is expected to produce more than one billion litres of renewable diesel annually.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 28, 2023.

Shell agrees to divest some western assets to get Comp Bureau approval on Empire deal

The Canadian Press

Shell Canada

Canada's competition watchdog says Shell Canada Ltd. has agreed to divest some of its western assets to advance its $100 million deal to buy gas stations from an affiliate of grocery giant Empire Co. Ltd.

The Competition Bureau says it concluded the energy company's plan to buy 56 gas stations from Sobeys Capital Inc. would likely lessen or prevent competition in three markets in Alberta and British Columbia.

To resolve the concerns, the bureau says Shell and its affiliate Canadian Mobility Services Ltd. will divest assets in Brooks, Alta., and in Fort St. John and Mission, B.C.

The bureau say Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell is satisfied that the divestment agreement will address the competition issues that were likely to result from the proposed transaction.

Shell struck a deal in December to buy all of Sobeys' western Canadian gas stations, saying the agreement would help it grow its retail fuel footprint across the country.

Shell supplies fuel to about 1,383 gas stations across Canada, while Sobeys owns about 391 stations and convenience stores.

SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket lifts massive satellite into space

Loren Grush, Bloomberg News

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - MAY 21: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon spacecraft is prepared for launch from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on May 21, 2023 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Saudi Arabia's first astronaut class, Rayyanah Barnawi and Ali AlQarni, along with former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, and John Shoffner will be flying to the International Space Station. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) , Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

SpaceX’s most powerful operational rocket successfully carried the world’s largest commercial communications satellite into orbit high above Earth.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s three-fuselage Falcon Heavy took off with the massive payload at 11:04 p.m. local time Friday from the company’s launchpad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The satellite was deployed about three and a half hours after liftoff.

Weighing more than nine metric tons and roughly the size of a bus, the Jupiter 3 satellite will provide wireless internet connectivity over North and South America. It will be operated by Hughes Network Systems, a unit of satellite communications company EchoStar Corp.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX opted not to recover the center core of its Falcon Heavy rocket to ensure it had enough fuel to ferry the hulking cargo to its intended orbit. The vehicle’s two side boosters, however, did successfully touch down on SpaceX’s dual landing pads in Florida. The pair had also flown on two prior Falcon Heavy missions.

Friday’s takeoff is the third for SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket in 2023 and the company’s 51st mission to orbit this year. Just a day prior, SpaceX launched another Falcon 9 rocket from the company’s other launchpad in Florida, with a new batch of Starlink internet satellites aboard.

Industrial board warns union bosses not to backtrack on new B.C. port deal
Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press
The union representing about 7,400 workers in the British Columbia port dispute has been warned by the Canada Industrial Relations Board that changing its mind about a new deal during ratification would be an "unfair labour practice."
The board's order issued Sunday also says the union must hold a ratification vote on the deal no later than Friday.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada and the BC Maritime Employers Association announced a late-night breakthrough Sunday, saying in a joint statement they had reached a new negotiated agreement and would be recommending it to their members.
The joint statement says the new tentative deal was reached with the assistance of the industrial relations board.
The long-running dispute saw workers walk off the job at more than 30 port terminals and other sites for 13 days at the beginning of July, freezing the movement of billions of dollars worth of cargo in and out of some of Canada's busiest ports.
Sunday's warning to the union's leadership comes after a previous proposed contract was supported by union negotiators, then rejected by leaders before they changed course and recommended it to members, who sank it in a full vote last week.
After that deal was voted down by union members, Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan announced Saturday he was directing the industrial relations board to determine if a negotiated end to the dispute was still possible, and if not, to impose an agreement or final binding arbitration.
Pressure had been mounting for federal intervention if a deal failed to eventuate.
Parties including Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, the Business Council of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business have all urged the federal government to legislate an end to the dispute if it continued.
The industrial relations board's order, posted online, also says the union must not engage in strike activity, and the employers must not conduct a lockout, until after the ratification results are known.
It also orders both sides not to speak to the media after issuing the single joint statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2023.

ILWU Canada Votes Down Second Labor Agreement, Negotiates Third

The rank-and-file membership of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's Canadian branch (ILWU Canada) has voted down a government-crafted labor agreement that would have raised their wages by about 19 percent, according to the BC Maritime Employers' Association (BCMEA). ILWU Canada's negotiators and leaders had recommended a vote in favor of the deal, which was the second iteration of a "final" agreement negotiated with federal mediators.

The latest breakdown did not last long: In a rapid-fire turnaround, negotiators for ILWU Canada and the BCMEA announced another settlement agreement late Sunday, heading off disruption. The new deal now goes to union membership for another vote.

Union members' decision to vote down the previous agreement reignited calls for the Canadian government to impose a resolution. Two previous rounds of labor action brought Canada's busiest container ports to a standstill for two weeks earlier this month.

The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, the largest business association in western Canada, said that it was "shocked and disappointed" by the rejection of the deal. The previous port shutdowns curtailed production at pulp mills, mines, and other businesses that depend on supplies shipped through Vancouver and Prince Rupert, and the board warned of inflationary effects if the strike resumes.

"An agreed-upon deal has now been rejected twice by the union. It is now time for the federal government and opposition parties to intervene to ensure that our ports stay open," said Bridgitte Anderson, head of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. "It is also clear that the federal government needs additional tools to facilitate lasting agreements when labor disruptions affect the entire economy.”

Federal Labor Minister Seamus O'Regan appeared to agree. On Saturday, O'Regan said in a statement that he has asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to rule on whether it is impossible for the two sides to reach negotiated agreement. If the CIRB makes this determination, they may impose a new collective agreement or impose a binding arbitration process, whether the union approves it or not. He left open "all options and eventualities" to end the dispute, signaling openness to a legislative back-to-work order.

The CIRB sat down with ILWU Canada and the BCMEA shortly after, and a third agreement was announced Sunday night. The deal must still pass muster with ILWU rank-and-file members.

Famed Antikythera Shipwreck Yields New Treasures

Antikythera excavation — Courtesy University of Geneva

The ancient wreck of Antikythera has been under investigation for more than 120 years, and the work to uncover its secrets continues. An international team of archaeologists, divers, engineers and physical and natural scientists recently visited the wreck, and for this season the researchers reported progress in learning more about the site's structure, the wreck itself and its cargo of ancient luxury goods.

The Antikythera wreck dates back to the first century BCE, and it is perhaps the most important ancient shipwreck ever found off the coast of Greece. It was discovered off the island of the same name in 1900, and over the years it has yielded up many treasures - like the bronze Antikythera Ephebe statue, a collection of luxury pottery, and one of the most famed finds of any archaeological site, the Antikythera Mechanism. This geared "computer" was designed to track the date and important recurring events, including solar and lunar eclipses. Nothing else like it appeared in the historical record for another 1,500 years.

The goal of this year's excavation was to better understand the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the vessel. The team examined the wreck's positioning, its possible route and its cargo. All the finds were documented in a digital map system, which contains all known discoveries from the lost vessel dating back to the first excavation in 1900.

Images courtesy University of Geneva

The work focused on the area at the eastern edge of the shipwreck site, where last year parts of large marble statues were found after the removal boulders. The team discovered the bones of at least one victim of the wreck, along with artifacts typical of the site: fragments of marble statues, pottery, glassware and copper alloy, lead and pieces of the ship's wooden structure. Among the marble fragments discovered, one likely belongs to the head from a statue of Herakles, which was found during last year's excavations.

The team found another discovery in more recent sediment layers: fragments of ceramics from a later era, suggesting the presence of another shipwreck from early Byzantine times.

The excavation work was led by a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Piraeus. The work has support from the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation - founded by prominent Greek shipowner Panos Laskaridis - along with watchmaker Hublot and the Nereus Research Foundation.

Japanese Team Develops “Game Changer” Floating Vertical Axis Wind Turbines

A consortium of Japanese companies is working to develop a new concept in floating offshore wind turbines that they report will be easier to manufacture while also costing less to build and maintain. Known as a vertical axis wind turbine, they believe it will be the next generation technology that will also be well suited to the challenges of floating turbines and resilient to harsh weather conditions.

Conventional horizontal axis floating wind turbines have a high center of gravity which requires a large and expensive to build floating structure to maintain the stability of the turbines, especially in harsh conditions such as a typhoon. The towers stand as high as nearly 500 feet, which the Japanese group highlights increases the maintenance costs. They also point to installation challenges including specialized vessels, and costly port infrastructure for the construction. In addition, the nature of the wind farm makes it difficult to enlarge.

With the vertical axis wind turbine, they report it is possible to increase the power generation to achieve a cost reduction for the overall installation and ongoing operation and maintenance expenses. The concept uses a series of smaller paddles, a maximum height of approximately 360 feet that are closer to the surface and critically have the ability to tilt up to 20 degrees while maintaining output. It uses a rotating cylindrical floating foundation.

The blades would be produced through a continuous pultrusion method using a molding process to form composite materials with carbon-reinforced plastics. The blades are produced in lengthwise sections with the same cross-sectional shape, eliminating the need for large manufacturing facilities. They would also be easier to transport than the traditional large wind turbine blades.

Japan’s J-Power, Osaka University’s Graduate School of Engineering, and Albatross Technology, a company developing ocean renewable energy technologies including floating offshore wind turbines, marine current turbines, and wave energy converters, conducted the initial studies on this floating wind technology. In the next phase, shipping company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (“K” Line) will join the research along with Tokyo Electric Power and Chubu Electric Power.

The five partners plan to jointly develop a small-scale (20kW) experimental floating axis wind turbine that will be installed in Japanese waters. After confirming the validity of the analysis and design method, they plan to proceed to a larger scale (megawatt class) offshore demonstration project.

They believe this design concept will represent a “game changer” for the industry and can help to address the challenges that offshore wind faces in Japan and elsewhere. They highlight that while the Sea of Japan is similar in size to the North Sea, which has become the center of Europe’s offshore wind industry, the Seto Inland Sea has a deeper water depth. They point out that moving even a few kilometers from land in Japan, it is difficult to install wind turbines with fixed foundations.

They also highlight Japan’s exposure to harsh weather and sea conditions including typhoons. This technology they report is designed to maintain its maximum output even with a tilt which they believe means it can significantly contribute to Japan’s future energy needs.

Orsted Signs First Lease for Staging Area at NJ Offshore Wind Port

New Jersey Offshore Wind Port under construction (NJEDA)

Orsted has signed the first sublet agreement for space at the New Jersey Offshore Wind Port, a newly-developed heavy lift port site for staging offshore wind turbines for installation.

Orsted will rent 34 acres at the port site and will employ up to 200 people there over the span of its two-year, $25 million lease. The site will support Orsted's massive Ocean Wind 1 project.

“Ørsted’s decision to marshal its Ocean Wind 1 project from the New Jersey Wind Port will create 200 jobs that would otherwise have gone to other states, and is the first of many projects that will use the Port in the years and decades ahead," said New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) CEO Tim Sullivan in a statement.

The agreement finalizes a long-anticipated lease deal. Orsted first submitted a non-binding offer to sublet in December 2020, and it agreed to a more formal letter of intent in April 2022. The two parties have been discussing terms for the past year and have settled on a final value for the lease.

Ocean Wind 1 is a large offshore wind farm proposal located about 13 nautical miles off the coast of Middle Township, New Jersey, towards the state's southernmost tip. At full buildout it will have a capacity of 2.2 GW, making it the largest offshore wind farm in the United States and the largest producer of wind power (onshore or off) in New Jersey.

The project was a joint venture between Orsted and New Jersey utility company PSEG until January, when PSEG sold its 25 percent stake and the development became solely owned by Orsted.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) approved Ocean Wind 1's construction and operations plan earlier this month, clearing away the final permitting hurdle before putting steel in the water.

Just after the federal approval, the state of New Jersey enacted legislation that will allow Orsted to keep tax credits that would have been passed along to ratepayers. The new law improves the project's financial footing but raising costs for the consumer, and has attracted controversy - and at least one lawsuit.

“If we don't figure out a solution, this doesn't get done in New Jersey,” Gov. Phil Murphy told media after a signing ceremony July 6. “We know war in Europe, inflation, supply chain — these projects have gotten a lot more expensive, and we're not the only place that's dealing with that. Either we get this bill done and the industry thrives here, and the jobs that are associated with it, or it goes somewhere else.”

Bulker Loses its Rudder Disabling it off New Zealand

bulker loses rudder — After reporting steering issues it was discovered the bulker lost its rudder (Joe Mabel photo - CC BY-SA 4.0)

Maritime officials in New Zealand are dealing with an unusual situation after a bulker departing port lost its rudder. They are working with the port and the owners to determine the plan of action for the vessel which has remained at anchor and is now detained by Maritime New Zealand until the safety of the vessel and its crew can be confirmed.

The Achilles Bulker is a 20-year-old ship operating regularly to New Zealand and in Asia with its management based in Taiwan. Registered in Panama, the vessel is 32,729 dwt and 580 feet in length.

The bulker arrived in New Zealand’s busy east coast port of Tauranga on the North Island in mid-July after a voyage from Hong Kong and Vietnam. It was in port to load a cargo of logs bound for China.

Shortly after departing Tauranga Harbor on July 24, the vessel reported it was experiencing steering issues and it anchored near the harbor entrance. Tugs later moved it to a safer anchor so that an investigation could begin into the nature of the problem.

New Zealand’s regulator Maritime New Zealand reports that when divers were sent down to investigate, they were surprised to find the vessel was missing its rudder. During subsequent dives, they were able to locate the rudder. The rudder was recovered by divers last week and brought to shore.

An investigation reportedly is showing evidence of previous damage to the rudder. Investigators also said that the bottom pintle which secures the rudder in place was missing.

Today it was announced that an official detention order has been placed on the vessel which is currently anchored 3.5 nautical miles off one of the area’s popular beaches. Harbor officials also established an exclusion zone around the vessel to prevent curious boaters from approaching the bulker.

Maritime New Zealand said it is working with regional officials and the port along with the owners of the bulker to determine a plan of action. Due to the rudder failure, Maritime New Zealand highlights that the Achilles Bulker will need to be towed to a dry dock for repairs, at the owner’s expense. The current plan is to first tow the ship back into Tauranga to offload the cargo.

A further investigation into the circumstances contributing to the rudder failure is ongoing. The ship’s last Port State Inspection was in April in New Zealand with only minor issues. Its record does not show a history of detentions and failures.

Top photo of the Achilles Bulker in 2022 by Joe Mabel -- CC BY-SA 4.0 license

China Launches First 700 TEU Electric Containership for Yangtze Service

China completed the float out of its first 700 TEU pure power containership. The vessel, which is being built for COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry, is part of an effort to use electric-powered vessels throughout the Yangtze region. It is the first of two river containerships being built for the operation.

The ship was floated at the shipyard in Yangzhou on July 26 and is currently being referred to by its hull number of N997. Dry dock assembly began in March 2023 after the project kicked off in December 2022. The ship is scheduled to commence sea trials in late September. It will undergo a thorough verification of the power system.

The vessel is 393 feet in length with a beam of approximately 77.5 feet and 10,000 tons. They will have a design draft of 18 feet to provide good maneuverability along the Yangtze with a carrying capacity of up to 700 TEU. They are designed to sail a route stretching more than 600 miles along the river and to the sea.

The reports are saying the vessels will have the largest installed battery capacity yet placed aboard a ship. They are utilizing a containerized battery approach with 36 replaceable containers as the power source. They will swap batteries along the route with the batteries recharged at stations along the route.

Each of the ships will be powered by two 900 kW main propulsion motors. When the project was unveiled last year, COSCO said the containerized batteries would be the size of a 20-foot container with a capacity of 50,000 kWh.

In addition, they will employ a smart ship management system to increase the efficiency of the operations. It will be able to intelligently adjust energy consumption based on the needs of the ship. It will plan the speed of the voyage according to the arrival time, water flow, battery capacity, and other factors.

Construction on N998, the second vessel of the class, began in May. They will be operated by Shanghai Pan Asia Shipping, a subsidiary of COSCO, on the Yangtze from Shanghai to Wuhan.

During the float-out ceremonies, officials said they were the first batch of green zero-carbon ships and would serve as a pilot for future projects.

Report: China Helps Russia Ship, Insure and Sell its Oil

Kozmino Oil Terminal (File image courtesy Nakhodka Maritime Services)

A top U.S government intelligence agency has accused China of aiding Russia’s war on Ukraine by supplying Moscow with key technology, military hardware and helping the country evade western sanctions, particularly on crude exports.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a newly declassified report that Beijing pursues a variety of support mechanisms for Russia that reduce both the impact of western sanctions and export supplies.

Apart from supplying Russia with a ready market for its crude, which has largely been locked out of the European market and other parts of the world, China has also opened its financial system for commercial interactions with Moscow, allowing Russian entities to conduct financial transactions without Western interference. Beijing also faces accusations of supplying Russia with key technology and dual-use equipment used in Ukraine.

One area that China has greatly helped Moscow escape the impacts of the sanctions is in oil and gas exports. With Russia’s trade with western countries taking a major nosedive in 20022, the report shows that China has come in handy to close the gap. During the year, total bilateral trade between Beijing and Moscow hit a record high of $190 billion, a 30 percent increase from 2021. Russia’s exports to China increased by 43 percent to hit $114 billion.

Last year, Beijing’s purchase of Russian energy rose to $81 billion compared to $52 billion in 2021. In March this year, crude imports from Russia hit 1.65 million barrels per day, overtaking India as the largest buyer of Russia’s crude. In May, Moscow exported a near record of two million barrels per day to China, an increase of about 25 percent compared to the first quarter of last year and accounting for about 15 percent of China’s demand.

While a majority of Russia tankers have been slapped with sanctions, China continues to aid the transportation of Russia’s Urals crude by providing supertankers and insurance coverage to move the crude to Chinese ports. The report, citing trading sources and tracking data, suggests that as of January this year at least four Chinese supertankers were shipping Russian Urals crude to China. Over the year to date, a total of 18 Chinese supertankers and another 16 Aframax-sized vessels have been used to ship Russian crude. The capacity is enough to transport 15 million tonnes, or about 10 percent of total Urals exports.

The report, citing press investigations, also observes that China has become the main conduit for Moscow’s purchasing of semiconductors, with millions of dollars’ worth of U.S-made or U.S-branded semiconductors flowing to Russia despite sanctions and export controls. During the nine-months period from January 2022 to September 2022, China’s semiconductor exports to Russia increased by 19 percent compared to the same period in 2021.

The report also shows that China has significantly opened up its financial system to Russia based on the increased share of bilateral trade settled in yuan and expansion of use of both country’s domestic payment systems. In fact, the share of Russian exports paid for in yuan rose by 14 percent in September 2022, up from 0.4 percent before the start of the war.

ICYMI, AGAIN

What Happens if the North Atlantic's Circulation Shuts Down?

Nordic Seas and subpolar basins with surface currents (solid curves) and deep currents (dashed curves) that form part of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (R. Curry / Woods Hole)

Amid news of lethal heatwaves across the Northern Hemisphere comes the daunting prospect of a climate disaster on an altogether grander scale. New findings published in Nature Communications suggest the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or Amoc, could collapse within the next few decades – maybe even within the next few years – driving European weather to even greater extremes.

The Amoc amounts to a system of currents in the Atlantic that bring warm water northwards where it then cools and sinks. It is a key reason why Europe’s climate has been stable for thousands of years, even if it’s hard to recognise this chaotic summer as part of that stability.

There is much uncertainty in these latest predictions and some scientists are less convinced a collapse is imminent. Amoc is also only one part of the wider Gulf Stream system, much of which is driven by winds that will continue to blow even if the Amoc collapses. So part of the Gulf Stream will survive an Amoc collapse.

But I have studied the links between Atlantic currents and the climate for decades now, and know that an Amoc collapse would still lead to even greater climate chaos across Europe and beyond. At minimum, it is a risk worth being aware of.

Amoc helps keep Europe warm and stable

To appreciate how much Amoc influences the climate in the northeast Atlantic, consider how much warmer north Europeans feel compared to people at similar latitudes elsewhere. The following maps show how surface air temperatures depart from the average at each latitude and highlight patterns of warm and cool spots around the planet:

Surface air temperature departure from 1948-2018 zonal average in January (top) and July (bottom). Marsh & van Sebille, 2021; Data: NCEP/NCAR, Author provided

Most striking in the northern winter (January) is a red spot centred to the west of Norway where temperatures are 20°C warmer than the latitude average, thanks to Amoc. The northeast Pacific – and therefore western Canada and Alaska – enjoys a more modest 10°C warming from a similar current, while prevailing westerly winds mean the northwest Atlantic and northwest Pacific are much colder, as are the adjacent land masses of eastern Canada and Siberia.

The weather and climate of Europe, and northern Europe in particular, is highly variable from day to day, week to week and year to year, with competing air masses (warm and moist, cold and dry, and so on) gaining or losing influence, often guided by the high-altitude jet stream. Changes in weather and climate can be triggered by events located far away – and over the ocean.

How ocean temperatures are linked to weather

Over recent years Europe has witnessed some particularly unusual weather, in both winter and summer. At the same time, peculiar patterns of sea surface temperatures have appeared across the North Atlantic. Across great swathes of the ocean from the tropics to the Arctic, temperatures have persisted 1°C-2°C above or below normal levels, for months or even years on end. These patterns appear to exert a strong influence on the atmosphere, even influencing the path and strength of the jet stream.

To an extent, we can attribute some of these sea surface temperature patterns to a changing Amoc, but it’s often not that straightforward. Nevertheless, the association of extreme seasons and weather with unusual sea temperatures might give us an idea of how a collapsed Amoc would unsettle the status quo. Here are three examples.

Northern Europe experienced successive severe winters in 2009/10 and 2010/11, subsequently attributed to a brief slowdown of the Amoc. At the same time heat had built up in the tropics, fuelling an unusually active June-November hurricane season in 2010.

In the mid 2010s a “cold blob” formed in the North Atlantic, reaching its most extreme in the summer of 2015 when it coincided with heatwaves in central Europe and was one of the only parts of the world cooler than its long-term average.

The cold blob looked suspiciously like the fingerprint of a weakened Amoc, but colleagues and I subsequently attributed this transient episode to more local atmospheric influences.

Spot the blob: temperatures in 2015 – at the time, the warmest year on record – compared to long-term averages. NASA/NOAA

In 2017, the tropical Atlantic was again warmer than average and once again an unusually active hurricane season ensued, although the Amoc was not as clearly involved as 2010. Extensive warmth to the northeast in late 2017 may have sustained hurricane Ophelia, emerging around the Azores and making landfall in Ireland in October.

Based on just these few examples, we can expect that a more substantial reorganisation of North Atlantic surface temperatures will have profound consequences for the climate in Europe and beyond.

Larger ocean temperature extremes may alter the character of weather systems that are powered by heat and moisture from the sea – when and where temperatures rise beyond current extremes, Atlantic storms may grow more destructive. More extreme ocean temperature patterns may exert further influences on tropical hurricane tracks and the jet stream, sending storms to ever more unlikely destinations.

If the Amoc collapses we can expect larger extremes of heat, cold, drought and flooding, a range of “surprises” to exacerbate the current climate emergency. The potential climate impacts – on Europe in particular – should add urgency to our decision-making.

Robert Marsh is a Professor of Oceanography and Climate at the University of Southampton.

This article appears courtesy of The Conversation and may be found in its original form here.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

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