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You’ve heard of the invisible hand of the market, the supposedly invisible force that drives an economy. Well, meet the invisible hand of weather: the Gulf Stream. The powerful current flowing through the Atlantic Ocean helps regulate temperatures in the northern hemisphere and is a vital sign of the planet’s global health.
New research into the pulse of the Gulf Stream suggests he may be on life support. According to a study published this week in the journal Nature and climate change, the current known as the Atlantic Meridional Reversing Circulation (AMOC) has experienced “an almost complete loss of stability” over the past 100 years and is showing signs of approaching complete collapse.
We know the Gulf Stream has been in bad shape for some time now. Research published earlier this year warned that the pull of the current was weaker than it has been for more than 1,000 years. But the researchers’ latest discovery indicates that things are worse than we previously imagined. The results indicate that AMOC could collapse, shifting from its status as a strong circulation which helps control the climate on both sides of the Atlantic, to a weak circulation which is no longer able to regulate temperatures.
Understanding how important the Gulf Stream is to the global climate requires knowing exactly what this invisible force is doing. Think of it as the conveyor belt of the Atlantic Ocean. It captures the warm surface waters of the Gulf of Mexico and transports them to Western Europe while returning the cooler and deeper waters of this region to the south. The current is capable of moving up to 20 million cubic meters of water per second, or about 100 times the speed of movement of the Amazon River. By moving these waters, the Gulf Stream influences the weather on the east coast of the United States, Canada, western Europe and the west coast of Africa. The current helps keep the waters warmer during the winter month and has a cooling effect during the summer months that helps regulate temperatures and avoid extreme weather events that might otherwise benefit from more favorable and less controlled conditions. .
If the Gulf Stream slows, it could be a disaster. The absence of this constant and predictable current that moves around the water could lead to a dramatic rise in sea level on the east coast of the United States, extremely cold winters in Europe, and devastating disturbances during the monsoon below. the tropics. Drier seasons could cause significant damage to essential crops in places like India, South America and Africa, which depend on these annual increases in rainfall to produce food that feed billions of people.
None of this is good, and we don’t know exactly when this collapse could occur, which creates a troubling amount of uncertainty. The researchers warn that the shift from strong traffic to weak status could occur over the next decade or could take several centuries. But if we don’t do something about climate change, it will likely happen sooner rather than later. The slowdown in the current is largely due to increased precipitation and melting ice caps around Greenland, which has pushed lighter, warmer fresh water into the creek where the cold and dense salt water is supposed to be found. These ice caps are melting because the planet is getting warmer.
Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and preventing global temperatures from rising is the only way to keep Earth’s essential treadmill running. If it stops, it will be as if someone suddenly presses the emergency stop on the treadmill while you are running. Things will change, fast, and it won’t be pretty.
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