The Gulf Stream and the Next Ice Age is a one-hour documentary which
explores the results of a recent American government report that
believes the collapse of thermohaline circulation will take place
around the year 2010 and impose a minor ice age on Europe. Could Dublin
acquire a climate like Spitzberg, and London like that of Siberia?
The
Gulf Stream is a powerful surface current, driven by the Trade Winds.
Its origins lie in the Gulf of Mexico and it carries the tropical
waters from the Florida Strait to the great banks of the United States,
where it heads eastward, carrying its warm waters to the borders of the
North Atlantic. As soon as the tropical waters hit the Arctic Ocean,
they cool abruptly and plunge towards the abyssal zone to form a loop,
known as "thermohaline circulation." Then, like an immense conveyor
belt that slows down in the ocean depths, it sets out again southward
to rejoin the beginning of the Gulf Stream.
Are we going to face a catastrophe if the Gulf Stream stops?
