Weakening of Gulf Stream 99 per cent certain, ramifications to be global: Study
Complex system of Gulf Stream making it difficult to find reasons for slowdown.
A new study confirmed that the Gulf Stream is certainly weakening. The warm water's flow through the Florida Straits has slowed by 4 per cent in the last four decades, with grave implications for the climate of the world.
The ocean current begins near Florida and a stream of warm water flows along the U.S. East Coast and Canada before it crosses the Atlantic to Europe. The heat that the stream is transporting is important for regulating sea levels and maintaining temperate conditions.
However, this stream has slowed down, wrote the researchers in a study which was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on September 25.
"This is the strongest, most definitive evidence we have of the weakening of this climatically-relevant ocean current," stated lead author Christopher Piecuch, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, in a statement.
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The Gulf Stream is only a small component of the thermohaline circulation which is a global conveyor belt of ocean currents that has been moving carbon, heat, nutrients and oxygen around the globe, while also contributing to controlling hurricane activity and sea levels.
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Gulf Stream maintainingtemperatures across US East Coast
The Gulf Stream, which begins in the Caribbean before it flows out into the Atlantic via the Florida Straits, brings warmer southerly waters (which are saltier and denser) northward for cooling and sinking in the North Atlantic. After it drops deep inside the ocean and releases its heat into the atmosphere, the water drifts southward slowly, where it again heats up and the cycle repeats.
This process is important for maintaining sea levels and temperatures across the US East Coast - whose waters were kept to 5 feet (1.5 metres) lower than the water further offshore by the current's sweeping motion.
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As the climate of the Earth warms, a huge influx of cold, fresh water from melting ice sheets spills into oceans, possibly leading to the Gulf Stream to slow or even move towards outright collapse, as per the scientists. However, it is hard to prove because of the complexity and scale of the system.
In search for definitive evidence that the stream has been slowing, the scientists looked into data which spanned 40 years and was collected from three separate sources — observations made on site, undersea cables and satellite altimetry — to look into the motions of the current around the Florida Straits.
(With inputs from agencies)
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