Claim 1: He claims a casual link between the oil disaster in the Gulf and the supposedly shutdown of one of this planets main heat redistribution mechanism.

He is rather vague when it comes to the detail of exactly HOW what in this context is an insignificant amount of oil in a huge ocean can impact the loop current and subsequently the Gulf Stream and NE Atlantic drift. Apart from a simple bath tub experiment - which absolutely does not scale to mesoscale or planetary scale dynamics - he offers no insight to WHY the presence of oil should affect ocean dynamics in any way at all.

In short, this claim seems like simple and plain bogus.


Claim 2: What HE and his friend proposes as a shutdown of those currents seems to me to be ordinary dynamics. Currents in the open ocean aren't steady rivers - they meander and create eddies that isolate themselves from the main current. The currents wary in strength and position from one week to the next, from one month to the next and from one year to the next. Exactly like his images show.

I am absolutely no expert on neither the Loop Current, the Gulf Stream nor the NE Atlantic drift - but I can tell you for a fact that the leading experts have been scrutinizing the Gulf area since April 2010. They are as interested as anyone else as to where this oil will go (Or what's left of it - most of it is probably broken down by now, although there is some uncertainty about the breakdown rate in deeper parts of the ocean) If what he has found really is so abnormal then that will surely be spotted and reported by every single expert on the Gulf stream / Loop current. So far, no one but him has reported anything out of the ordinary. At least I've not heard of any such studies. And neither has he - or he would refer to them, wouldn't he?


Further, he writes "since comparatively analysis with past satellite data didn't show relevant anomalies" . The "didn't show relevant anomalies"-filter seems rather vague and subjective. Frankly, I believe it means that he didn't immediately see anything he didn't want to see when quickly browsing through the pictures.


Third: Right now, the cold spell over Northern Europe is not linked to anything out of the ordinary in the ocean dynamics of the Atlantic ocean. Nor was the cold spell of last winter.


In summary: If something sounds too extraordinary to be true - it usually is bogus.

For honing your skills when it comes to separating bogus from real info I highly recommend "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre. Google "bad science" and the first link is Goldacre's web site, the second to Amazon selling his book.