Insider
12-03-2005, 04:56 PM
Gulf Stream Weakens Dramatically
02-Dec-2005
Will the gulf stream keep Europe warm?
It has diminished 30% in strength in just a few years, and it's impending end raises fears of much colder European weather. As outlined in Whitley Strieber and Art Bell's book Superstorm , which was the basis for the film The Day After Tomorrow. The consequences could be much more far-reaching and severe if the current should stop suddenly, over a period of weeks or months, rather than slowly declining over years.
Fred Pearce writes in New Scientist that the ocean current that keeps Europe’s climate pleasant and moderate may fail, meaning that Europe will enter a mini ice age of the kind that it experienced during the 13-19th centuries. If you look at a globe, you’ll note that the UK is actually on the same meridian as Nova Scotia. Without the warming waters of the gulf stream, it will have the same weather. Melting glaciers, which dilute the salinity of the ocean, are causing this protective ocean current to drop south, meaning it will no longer flow past the British Isles and Western Europe.
UK oceanographer Harry Bryden says he is "nervous" about this discovery and that it has "come as quite a surprise."
For more information:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398
02-Dec-2005
Will the gulf stream keep Europe warm?
It has diminished 30% in strength in just a few years, and it's impending end raises fears of much colder European weather. As outlined in Whitley Strieber and Art Bell's book Superstorm , which was the basis for the film The Day After Tomorrow. The consequences could be much more far-reaching and severe if the current should stop suddenly, over a period of weeks or months, rather than slowly declining over years.
Fred Pearce writes in New Scientist that the ocean current that keeps Europe’s climate pleasant and moderate may fail, meaning that Europe will enter a mini ice age of the kind that it experienced during the 13-19th centuries. If you look at a globe, you’ll note that the UK is actually on the same meridian as Nova Scotia. Without the warming waters of the gulf stream, it will have the same weather. Melting glaciers, which dilute the salinity of the ocean, are causing this protective ocean current to drop south, meaning it will no longer flow past the British Isles and Western Europe.
UK oceanographer Harry Bryden says he is "nervous" about this discovery and that it has "come as quite a surprise."
For more information:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398