“Gulf-Stream Effect a Myth”: Europe gets an Ice-Age reprieve
In an article that covers a variety of climate-change topics, the Environmental News Network (ENN) has reported that Europe may not be in store for a new ice-age.
The theory that an ice-age was in store for Europe came from several contributing factors; a) that the gulf stream is a major contributor to the weather patterns that affect the continental Europe differently to the same latitude in America, b) that ice-melt from the arctic will strangle the gulf stream and drastically reduce its speed. Both these ‘facts’ are now under question.
Richard Seager, a scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, N.Y., believes that the ‘Gulf Stream effect’ is a myth. The effect is the theory that the Gulf Stream (also known as the ocean conveyor-belt) is the reason that Europe suffers from milder temperatures during winter, compared to the same latitude in North America.
"The amount of warming that the current gives -- only about 2-3 degrees over land on either side -- is really small compared to the temperature difference between those regions, which is more like 15 to 20 centigrade in winter," he said. "So no one should ever confuse that temperature difference between the two regions as being in any way caused by the movement of heat by the Gulf Stream."
In regards to the Stream itself, Helge Drange, of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Bergen, Norway believes that, according to her climate models, northwestern Europe may only receive an increase of 2-3 degrees C rather than the predicted 3-4. These numbers may sound small and their margins inconsequential, but even a difference like this is purported to be a help.
In Faeroes, a semiautonomous Danish territory with 50,000 inhabitants, their winters are 22F higher than in Anchorage, Alaska, which is on the same latitude. So even a slight cooling could mean the difference between their winters being white or green. "The Faeroes would be very much colder but also large areas of this region and the whole Arctic would be very much affected if this flow of heat would weaken considerably," said Bogi Hansen, a Faeroese who has been studying the Gulf Stream off the Faeroe Islands.
And though some scientists are debating whether the Gulf Stream is really contributing to the overall climate change, Faeroese fishermen are less sure. Jogvan Trondarson comments in the article that he has seen many more icebergs off the eastern coast of Greenland compared to 20 years ago. With the sea-ice creeping back 120 miles, and storms increasing in ferocity according to Trondarson, a veteran shrimper, says "For me it's facts.”
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