| December 1, 2005 | |
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Nobody likes to have their warm water cut off during the wintertime. But just
that could be happening to Europe, as new research points to a weakening of the
Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic. It's one of the long-predicted horror
scenarios associated with global warming: as temperatures rise around the world,
melting ice in the Artic changes the salinity of the Atlantic which in turn
slows the ocean's circulation. The result? The currents might no longer prop up
Europe's temperatures and large areas of the continent might be plunged into icy
cold winters.
Researchers from Britain's National Oceanography Center measuring the strength
of the currents between Africa and along the East Coast of the United States
came to the conclusion that the flow of water had weakened by 30 percent since
first recorded in 1957. Harry Bryden, who led the led the study, said the most
dramatic change has only come since the last expedition 12 years ago. "Models
show that if it shuts down completely, 20 years later, the temperature is 4 to 6
degrees Celcius cooler over the United Kingdom and northwestern Europe," Bryden
told the Guardian newspaper.
So is Europe poised for a deep freeze? "We don't have to plan for an ice age,"
Detlef Quadfasel, an oceanographer at the University of Hamburg, told SPIEGEL
ONLINE. In article accompanying the new findings in
Nature magazine he said the Gulf Stream circulation will only be slowly
affected by the decreasing ocean water salinity at first. But Quadfasel warned
the ocean currents could abruptly stop once a certain point is reached. And that
could have "disastrous effects on the social and economic conditions" in Europe.
A NASA image showing temperature difference in the Gulf Stream of the eastern United States.