Gulf Stream the warm current in the Atlantic ocean have slowed to the weakest in as long as 1,000 years. This will show a great impact on the European and U.S weather and coastal sea levels in New York and Boston.
Gulf Stream is the hot water current which is responsible for the mild weather in northwestern Europe.
Scientists led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said in a study Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change that the currents are affected by changes in the ocean density as fresh water melts from the Arctic ice sheets.
Slower circulation of the current will make Europe colder by depriving northern latitudes of warm currents.
Researchers are raising concerns regarding the slower movement of Gulf Stream. Man made Climate change is held responsible for this.
Stefan Rahmstorf, an institute scientist and lead author of its study, said “One specific area in the North Atlantic has been cooling in the past hundred years while the rest of the world heats up, if the slowdown of the Atlantic overturning continues, the impacts might be substantial.”
Scientist used atmospheric and sea surface temperature data form tree-rings, ice-cores, coral, ocean and lake sediments to document ocean currents that convey heat, tracing temperature swings for more than a millennium.
Pennsylvania State University’s Michael Mann said in the statement, climate models should be updated as they underestimate the effects of ice melts and temperature swings.