A new study shows that the Gulf Stream is getting weaker and weaker. The danger is that ocean currents could change direction and upset the unstable balance of the climate.
Data from a large number of ocean research projects show that the Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC) has significantly weakened in recent decades.
The current, known as the Gulfstream, even in periods of increased water level throughout the winter, brings moderate temperatures to the Channel Islands towards Ireland and Great Britain to the Netherlands, to the west of Germany and further to Scandinavia.
"The Gulfstream system (…) moves nearly 20 million cubic meters of water per second, an amount that is almost a hundred times greater than that of the Amazon current," says Stefan Rahmstorf, explaining its significance for the climate system. The researcher at the Scientific Research Institute for Climate (PIK) in Potsdam is the initiator of this study and its co-author. The study was published on February 25, 2021 in the scientific journal "Nature Geoscience".
If the AMOC loses power, the second dominant climate phenomenon in the North Atlantic: the North Atlantic Deep Water Current may also change radically.
This current starts where the Gulf Stream ends, in the Arctic Ocean in Iceland.
Reinforced by currents coming from the Arctic Ocean in Greenland and West Canada, it regularly transports cold, low-salt water at depth across the two American continents to the Antarctic Ocean.
But what if the surface and depth currents differ?
The Potsdam Institute PIK has long drawn attention to the fact that a breakdown of this system caused by climate change can have unpredictable consequences for nature and man. With the melting of Greenland's glaciers and increased precipitation in the ocean will add salt-free water. This causes less cold water to penetrate at depth, so the US Deep Current loses strength.
What climate system will replace the existing system? How can massive changes in the current system affect the fauna and flora of the oceans? Will regional climate zones change? Can nature and man quickly adapt to these changes? All these questions ask researchers. Right now they predict that in the near future along the northern coast of the USA there may be frequent flooding and in Europe there may be more extreme weather.
Even now, meteorologists notice signs of changes in certain seasons. Climate researchers at PIK link the cold observed in recent years in the North Atlantic to the weakening of the Gulf Stream. /DW/
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