The Gulf Stream sputtering to a halt
The Guardian has a story on the beleagured gulf-stream, Sea change: why global warming could leave Britain feeling the cold.
Scientists have uncovered more evidence for a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Britain its relatively balmy climate by dragging warm water northwards from the tropics. The slowdown, which climate modellers have predicted will follow global warming, has been confirmed by the most detailed study yet of ocean flow in the Atlantic.
Most alarmingly, the data reveal that a part of the current, which is usually 60 times more powerful than the Amazon river, came to a temporary halt during November 2004.
This is scary stuff. The shutdown of the Gulf Stream has terrifying consequences for the entire planet.
Lloyd Keigwin, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts, in the US, described the temporary shutdown as “the most abrupt change in the whole [climate] record”.
He added: “It only lasted 10 days. But suppose it lasted 30 or 60 days, when do you ring up the prime minister and say let’s start stockpiling fuel? How can we rule out a longer one next year?”
What if it stops for years? All of a sudden The Day After Tomorrow doesn’t look so silly. (Well apart from those animated wolves). — DS
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