The Gulf Stream has decreased considerably over the last century, and scientists have warned that it may completely collapse.
Without it, you run the risk of uninhabitable heat, climate change, and increasing sea levels.
What is the Gulf Stream?
Because it carries warm, salty water north and transfers heat to western Europe before circling back south over the Atlantic, the Gulf Stream is frequently referred to as the world’s “conveyor belt.”
It is a component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a much larger system of currents.
However, there could be a number of issues if the Gulf Stream fails.
Why is the Gulf Stream collapsing?
As per the findings of the University of California, Riverside, the AMOC ‘has been deteriorating for more than a century’.
Professor Wei Liu, one of the study’s authors, stated that “that trend is likely to continue” because greenhouse gas emissions are still rising.
For a while, it was believed that the North Atlantic was being overflowed with freshwater due to Greenland’s ice sheet melting due to global warming.
By diluting the salty water, this effectively slowed down and wore down the AMOC until it might have collapsed.
However, computer model simulations have revealed a’very substantial association’ to climate change in this latest study.
“People have been asking why this cold spot exists; we found the most likely answer is a weakening AMOC,” Liu said.
“The overall impact on ecosystems and weather patterns, both in the Arctic and globally, could still be severe.”
What do scientists think will happen to the UK if the Gulf Stream collapses?
Tim Lenton, a professor of climate change at the University of Exeter, told the Financial Times that, “in simple terms, [it would be] fundamentally less habitable than it is at the moment” in reference to the UK.
Britain could ‘anticipate that there would be more winter storms produced by stronger westerly winds,’ according to Professor David Thornalley, a climate scientist at University College London, told the Daily Mail.
“Unfortunately people would die due to stronger winter storms and flooding, and many old and young would be vulnerable to the very cold winter temperatures,” he stated.
Our climate would resemble that of Scandinavia if temperatures dropped by 10C.
What does a Gulf Stream collapse mean for the rest of the world?
Thornalley maintains that “many millions would be affected and suffer from drought, famine, and flooding, in countries that are already struggling to deal with these issues” in reference to the rest of the population.
In contrast to the effects on the United Kingdom, he clarified, “There would be huge numbers of climate refugees, geopolitical tensions would rise.”
According to a concerning analysis, it might fall apart at any time between 2025 and 2095.
Furthermore, Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at Germany’s Potsdam Institute, told the FT that a complete collapse of the AMOC would be a “massive, planetary-scale disaster.”
“It is quite difficult to know exactly what the impacts will be, but my feeling is that they will be quite devastating.”