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The current known as Golfstrim even in periods of rising water levels during the winter brings moderate temperatures in the Channel Islands towards Ireland and the UK as far as the Netherlands, west of Germany and further into Scandinavia.
“The Golfstrim (Sist) system drives nearly 20 million cubic meters of water per second, which is almost a hundred times greater than the Amazon stream,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, explaining its significance for the climate system. The researcher at the Climate Science Research Institute (CIP) in Potsdam is the initiator of this study and its co-author. The study was published on February 25, 2021 in the scientific journal Nature Geosience.
In the event that AMOC loses power, the second dominant climate phenomenon in the North Atlantic could also change radically: the North Atlantic Current in the depths of the water.
This current starts where the Gulf Stream ends in the Arctic Ocean in Iceland.
Reinforced by currents coming from the Arctic Ocean to Greenland and Western Canada it regularly transports cold, low-salt water deep along the two American continents to the Antarctic Ocean.
But what if the currents at the surface and at depth change?
The Potsdam Institute PIK has long pointed out that a breakdown of this system caused by climate change could have unpredictable consequences for nature and man. With the melting of Greenland’s glaciers and the increase in rainfall in the ocean, salt-free water will be added. This causes less cold water to penetrate deeper, so the American current at depth loses power.
What climate system will replace the existing system? How can massive changes in the current system affect the fauna and flora of the oceans? Will regional climate zones change? Can nature and man adapt quickly to these changes? All of these questions are posed by researchers. For now they predict that in the near future along the northern coast of the US floods may occur frequently and in Europe there may be more extreme weather.
Meteorologists already notice the signs of changes in certain seasons. Climate researchers in BIP associate the cold observed in recent years in the North Atlantic with the weakening of the Gulf Stream current./DW
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