A report on the
slowdown in the Gulf Stream has been making the rounds of the newswires
over the past couple of days.
The ocean current that gives western Europe its relatively balmy
climate is stuttering, raising fears that it might fail entirely and plunge
the continent into a mini ice age.The dramatic finding comes from a study of ocean circulation in the North
Atlantic, which found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water
north from the Gulf Stream.
The cause of the slowdown is believed to be increased runoff from icemelt in
the arctic decreasing salinity of water in the far northern Atlantic, which
interferes with the dynamics that create the Gulf Stream.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have people heralding the coming of a new ice age,
brought on by global warming.
The best-balanced comment I’ve seen on the phenomenon is that this change in
ocean currents could cause a cooling of European winters by a degree or four
centigrade…and the question is to what extent it might offset the general
global rise in temperatures.
This report also, I think, just adds to the noise about the global warming
issue. We not only have the question of how much of global warming is a
result of long-term weather cycles, and how much is the result of human
activity…but we also have the questions of what the impact of climate
change will be, and what (if anything) can be done about it.
I’m not one of the nuts who believes that industrial activity ought to be
limited/managed to prevent global warming (too late for that, I think, if
there is a causal relationship). I do agree, however, with the idea that we
as a society (or group of societies) ought to live in better balance with
the environment, just on the common-sense grounds that pollution can’t
possibly be good in the long-term, even if there are questions about what
the long-term effects of that pollution might be.