Part of the ‘Global Ocean Conveyor Belt’, a series of giant ocean currents that flow around the earth, the Gulf stream carries vast quantities of warm Atlantic water northward giving Europe and parts of North America a temperate climate. The amount of heat involved is phenomenal, estimated by Stephen Rahmstorf, an oceanographer at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, as equivalent to one million powerplants.
Without the Gulf stream, Northern Europe would be hardly habitable, certainly not by the present dense population.
The Gulf stream is powered by the weight of the dense, salty water of the northern part of the current which sinks, pulling the current behind it. Scientists are extremely worried that fresh water pouring into the northern ocean from melting glaciers will mix with the salt water of the current making it lighter and unable to sink. It is disturbing that from measurements taken in the last few years there is already a decline in the vigour of the circulation and studies indicate that unlike other climate changes, ocean currents can shift or stop in just a few years.
The effects of such a shut-down would push Northern Europe into semi-Arctic weather conditions, a change so profound that most people don’t even want to think about it.