Here’s a sobering report published on Monday on the website LiveScience. Forty four top climate scientists have alerted policy makers in the Nordic countries that the collapse of the Gulf Stream and the other major Atlantic currents will precipitate devastating weather and climate changes in Europe and North America.
While this threat has been on our radar for a while, the group of scientists argue that they and many others have seriously underestimated the rate and immanent timing of the current collapse.
The currents involved are part of what is known as the North Atlantic Meridonal Overturning Circulation. The currents primarily involved are the north-flowing Gulf Stream, the east-flowing North Atlantic Current, the south-flowing Canary Current and the west-flowing North Equatorial Current.
Together, these currents deliver warm Caribbean water to Scandinavia and Europe while transporting cold water from the arctic to the tropics. The process serves to keep the land masses on both sides of the ocean temperate and habitable.
If this circulation of warm and cold water shuts down, a collapse that is being caused by the flood of cold runoff fresh water from Greenland’s melting glaciers, large northern regions of both continents will suffer localized ice ages.
In their letter to the Nordic Council of Ministers, the scientist jointly wrote: “Even with a medium likelihood of occurrence, given that the outcome would be catastrophic and impacting the entire world for centuries to come, we believe more needs to be done to minimize this risk.”
