National Geographic just released this article about the slowing down of the Gulf Stream, known as the Atlantic Meridian Ocean Circulation (AMOC). Ten years ago when I first read about the slow-down of the Gulf Stream I felt intuitively that it would eventually trigger catastrophic and irreversible climate change. That is what scientists fear is coming now. The AMOC is the heart beat of the earth. It is like the heart is slowing down.
The immediate effects I was thinking about when I asked the question were: (1) increase in sea level rise on the eastern seaboard because the Gulf Stream will no longer pull water into it and that water will wash back onto the U.S. east coast, and (2) Europe could suffer initially very cold weather, even possibly some summer less years, which would be devastating to farming there but the rest of the world would make up the shortfall for them.
Remember that Europe is kept warm by the Gulf Stream which brings warmer water north from Africa and the Caribbean. As the Gulf Stream slows down, it stops bringing warm air north. The Gulf Stream is slowing down because of a large amount of fresh water in the North Atlantic coming from Greenland ice melt. Fresh water is lighter than salt water, and doesn't sink. It is the sinking of the Gulf Stream waters in the North Atlantic that causes the conveyer belt effect of the Gulf Stream, pulling the warm water to the deep ocean when it cools in the North Atlantic.
But the slowing down of AMOC will have even more effects for the whole globe since it is essentially the heart pump of our earth and is the source of the ocean circulation.
It's hard to imagine what the oceans will be like when they stop circulating. But scientists feel it will affect the monsoons.
I'm wondering, Jeanne, if you know anything about how the slowing Gulf Stream will affect temperatures in the Northeastern US and Eastern Canada. Everything I've read on the subject is about Europe.
@coyote Funny you should ask. I've been exploring this question this afternoon. When I saw the attached map, I realized why no-one is saying that the Gulf Stream warms New England. It veers away from New England much further south - around Cape Hatteras, NC. The map shows the temperatures of the Atlantic coast which shows New England's water not appreciably warmed by the Gulf Stream.
Here's a March 2018 article that talks only of the Gulf Stream's impact on sea levels,
As you have said, the main impact on New England, and it is a big one, is that it has been pulling water away from the East Coast, and when it slows down, that water will flow back, raising sea levels here.
New England has been experiencing much colder winters from climate change from other factors -- primarily the dissembling of the Polar Vortex, the jet stream winds around the Arctic that used to keep Arctic cold air inside the Arctic. The Polar Vortex is like a rubber band of wind around the Arctic that is now loose and sometimes stretches down to New England. When that happens, we get the polar air, deep snows. I think you already know all this, but maybe others don't, so am including it.
@echec_et_maths. Your climate quiz is excellent for helping people to know what they can do to contribute to the solving the problem. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/04/specials/climate-change-solutions-quiz/
@echec_et_maths
I read a couple of months back hurricanes are supposed to move more slowly in the future (all the while dumping water - a-la-harvey),
-which would be a very bad thing. Our house, which has been here since the 1930's, had never flooded. Not even close, having been thru plenty of hurricanes.
But then came Hurricane Harvey, and i find myself floating my elderly parents on an inflatable mattress, up the street, water up to my neck. Bugs clinging to my head and hands, and i don't even mind, as we all want to live. The stray cats we feed, looking down from rooftops, distraught.
It always seems so abstract, until it's not