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IPCC report: Britain could cool if Gulf Stream slows. The panel is due to publish the predictions in its fifth major assessment of global warming on Friday.

IPCC report: Britain could cool if Gulf Stream slows

Compiled by more than 2,000 scientists over three years, it is intended to be the most comprehensive analysis of climate change and its underlying causes. The report will say that the warming of the oceans will interfere with the currents in the Atlantic, also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

It will state: “It is very likely that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation will weaken over the 21st century. It is likely that there will be some decline in the AMOC by 2050, but there will be some decades when the AMOC increases.” The report provides a basis for governments to draw up policies aimed at tackling climate change and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. But tense discussions this week between officials from several governments over the final wording of the report have fallen a long way behind schedule. New Simulations Question the Gulf Stream’s Role in Tempering Europe’s Winters.

Yet recent modeling studies with higher resolution of ocean currents suggest that fresh Arctic meltwater may pour mostly into currents that are more restricted to the coastlines and therefore have less influence on the open ocean, where downwelling primarily occurs.

New Simulations Question the Gulf Stream’s Role in Tempering Europe’s Winters

Even if freshwater significantly affected the amount of waters downwelled in the North Atlantic, it turns out to be highly unlikely that this change would effectively shut down the Gulf Stream. A shutdown is unlikely because the path and the strength of the Gulf Stream depend largely on the speed and direction of the large-scale midlatitude winds. In most climate change scenarios, the general direction of the large-scale winds does not change significantly as Arctic ice melts, so the general path and strength of the Gulf Stream do not change much either. More Data, Better Resolution At present, answers to how climate change would affect Europe's weather come largely from modeling experiments. Is the Gulf Stream responsible for Europe's mild winters? - Seager - 2006 - Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. Gulf Stream. Surface temperature in the western North Atlantic.

Gulf Stream

North America is black and dark blue (cold), the Gulf Stream red (warm). Source: NASA The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

Weather Centre - Climate Change - Gulf Stream. How fast is the Gulf Stream? The Gulf Stream is an intense, warm ocean current in the western North Atlantic Ocean.

How fast is the Gulf Stream?

It moves north along the coast of Florida and then turns eastward off of North Carolina, flowing northeast across the Atlantic. Off the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, the Gulf Stream flows at a rate nearly 300 times faster than the typical flow of the Amazon River. Shutdown of thermohaline circulation. A summary of the path of the thermohaline circulation.

Shutdown of thermohaline circulation

Blue paths represent deep-water currents, while red paths represent surface currents A shutdown or slowdown of the thermohaline circulation is a postulated effect of global warming. Thermohaline circulation and fresh water[edit] The red end of the spectrum indicates slowing in this presentation of the trend of velocities derived from NASA Pathfinder altimeter data from May 1992 to June 2002. Source: NASA. Some even fear that global warming may be able to trigger the type of abrupt massive temperature shifts which occurred during the last glacial period: a series of Dansgaard-Oeschger events – rapid climate fluctuations – may be attributed to freshwater forcing at high latitude interrupting the THC. Studies of the Florida Current suggest that the Gulf Stream weakens with cooling, being weakest (by ~10%) during the Little Ice Age.[13] Measurements in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2010[edit] Bryden measurements reported late 2005[edit] IPCC climate report: the digested read.

Global change The global climate has already changed in many ways that are unprecedented in the past hundreds or thousands of years, the world's scientists and governments concluded in the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

IPCC climate report: the digested read

These changes have affected every region of the globe, on land and at sea. Continued carbon emissions will drive further heatwaves, sea level rise, melting ice and extreme weather.