Gulf Stream Shows Signs of Slowing

Climate researchers have reported a weakening of the mechanism that keeps Great Britain temperate, the

Times of London reported on May 8, 2005. “They have found that one of the ‘engines’ driving the Gulf Stream—the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea—has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength,” the article reports. If the slowing continues, “the effect will be to cool the climate of northern Europe,” according to Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, who reported the findings. The article points out that Britain sits at the same latitude as Siberia and that the Gulf Stream currently “transports 27,000 times more heat to British shores than all the nation’s power supplies could provide, warming Britain by 5–8°C [9–14°F].”