Tag Archives: Gulf Stream

‘Cliff-Like’ Collapse of Critical Current System More Likely Than Thought: Study

“The new study adds significantly to the rising concern about an AMOC collapse in the not-too-distant future,” said one scientist. “We will ignore this at our peril.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 2-10-2024 by Common Dreams

*Human-driven planetary warming threatens to collapse a system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that regulate and impact weather across the globe. Image: Felton Davis/flickr/CC*

A study published Friday warned that a systemic collapse of the Atlantic Ocean currents driving warm water from the tropics toward Europe could be more likely than researchers previously estimated—an event that would send temperatures plummeting in much of the continent.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which includes the Gulf Stream, could be headed for a relatively sudden shutdown that René Van Western, who led the Dutch study published in Science Advances, called “cliff-like.”

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Greenland’s government bans oil drilling, leads indigenous resistance to extractive capitalism

The young indigenous leadership of Múte Bourup Egede is battling for green sovereignty in a time of climate collapse

By Adam Ramsay and Aaron White. Published 11-10-2021 by openDemocracy

Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Greenland Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede. Photo: Secretary Antony Blinken/Twitter

In 2016, Greenland’s then minister responsible for economic development, Vittus Qujaukitsoq, welcomed the appointment of Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, as US secretary of state. Despite representing the centre-Left party Siumut (Forward) and being surrounded by some of the most visible consequences of the warming world, Qujaukitsoq and his colleagues saw the growing potential for mining and drilling brought by the melting glaciers on the world’s biggest island as an opportunity to bring in the cash which would allow the long-desired independence from Denmark. Continue reading →

‘Unimaginably Catastrophic’: Researchers Fear Gulf Stream System Could Collapse

“Scientists say we cannot allow this to happen. People in power stand in our way.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-5-2021

The Gulf Stream is an ocean current that carries warm water from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic Ocean. (Image: NASA)

While heatwaves, fires, and floods produce warnings that “we are living in a climate emergency, here and now,” a scientific study suggested Thursday that a crucial Atlantic Ocean current system could collapse, which “would have severe impacts on the global climate system.”

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, focuses on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which includes the Gulf Stream. As the United Kingdom’s Met Office explains, it is “a large system of ocean currents that carry warm water from the tropics northwards into the North Atlantic,” like a conveyor belt. Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: Gulf Stream

‘Cliff-Like’ Collapse of Critical Current System More Likely Than Thought: Study

“The new study adds significantly to the rising concern about an AMOC collapse in the not-too-distant future,” said one scientist. “We will ignore this at our peril.”

‘Unimaginably Catastrophic’: Researchers Fear Gulf Stream System Could Collapse

“Scientists say we cannot allow this to happen. People in power stand in our way.”