Polar melt may shut down the Atlantic current that warms Europe

New Scientist

Image: NASA Goddard Photo and Video

The ocean current that gives western and northern Europe a relatively mild climate might be at greater risk of shutdown than we thought. If the North Atlantic current – the northern segment of the Gulf Stream – did grind to a halt the effects could be severe, from greater sea-level rise on Atlantic coasts to more intense droughts in Africa.

Surface seawater in the subpolar region chills during the winter months, which makes it so cold and dense that it sinks. This process, known as ocean convection, is an important part of the large-scale ocean circulation.

But the process is threatened by the rapid warming in polar regions. To investigate, Marilena Oltmanns and her colleagues at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, studied seawater salinity and temperature data collected in the Irminger Sea to the south of Greenland between 2002 and 2014. Read more on newscientist.com…