Golf Stream online. How does golfstream work? A warm current is... Main characteristics of currents. The most famous warm currents
Gulf Stream
(Atlantic Ocean)
A century and a half ago, a serious institution with dry official name"The Depot of Maps and Instruments" published a book in the USA with an equally dry and scientific title " Physiography seas".
Having revealed this seemingly strict treatise, the reader unexpectedly discovered from the very first page that it would talk about unusually interesting things, and the narrator himself was a man very different from the learned biscuit - a statistician-hydrographer. However, read the first two paragraphs of his book (I quote the Russian translation of 1861) and see for yourself:
“There is a river in the ocean that does not become shallow during any drought, and does not overflow its banks during any flood. Its banks and bottom consist of cold water, while its own streams are warm. Its source is in the Gulf of Mexico, and its mouth in the polar seas. This is the Gulf Stream. There is no other water stream in the world that rivals it in magnificence and enormity: it flows faster than the Mississippi and the Amazon and is a thousand times larger than them in volume.
Its waters from the bay to the shores of Carolina are indigo in color. Their limits are indicated so clearly that it is easy for the eye to trace the line of their connection with the ordinary waters of the sea; it even happens to see how a ship floats on one side on the blue water of the Gulf Stream, and on the other on the ordinary dark green waves of the ocean; The dividing line is so sharply defined, the affinity between the two water masses is so insignificant, and they so stubbornly resist mutual mixing.”
These lines by American oceanographer Matthew Maury have become classic among geographers. Since then, scientists and writers around the world have devoted many fascinating pages to the “river in the ocean.” Julieverne's captain Nemo and the "sea wolf cub" Mine Reed, the heroes of Conrad and Conan Doyle, Jack London and Sabatini, Stanyukovich and Captain Marryat swam here. And the Gulf Stream has become, probably, the most famous current in the World Ocean to the general public.
It begins in the southern part of the Strait of Florida, which leads from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic, and ends at the Great Bank of Newfoundland, a vast shoal off the coast of Canada. The current generated by the bay was named in honor of its progenitor (Gulf Stream translated as “current from the bay”). However, the Gulf Stream, of course, does not disappear off the island of Newfoundland. It simply breaks down here into several branches, the most powerful of which deviates to the east and goes to the shores of Europe under the name of the North Atlantic Current.
Europeans first learned about the Gulf Stream from Christopher Columbus, who encountered it on his first voyage to the islands of the New World in 1492. And twenty years later, the Spanish conquistador Ponce de Leon, trying to sail into the Gulf of Mexico past the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula, discovered that his ship, with a fair wind and under full sail, was moving... in the opposite direction! A similar strange phenomenon has been noted more than once off the Florida coast, but many decades passed before sailors realized that the powerful current in this area helps them return to Europe faster, while the sailing route to America must be laid further south, in the zone of trade winds.
First Scientific research The Gulf Stream was traced in 1770 by the American scientist Benjamin Franklin, who compiled its approximate map and gave the current its now well-known name. The impetus for the study of the Gulf Stream for Franklin, who was then serving in the postal department, was the inexplicable fact that high-speed postal packet boats traveled from England to the States for seven weeks, while heavily laden ships traveling from the USA to British shores spent only a little over a month.
The cause of this powerful warm current is the large surge of water into the Gulf of Mexico by the trade winds. The southern branches of the North Trade Wind Current and the northern branches of the South Trade Wind Current, entering the Gulf of Mexico, create a significant difference in water levels in the Gulf and the adjacent part of the Atlantic. Excess water rushes into the ocean through the Straits of Florida, giving rise to the Gulf Stream. The width of the current at the exit of the strait is 75 kilometers, the depth is 700 meters, and the average speed is about 150 kilometers per day, that is, more than six kilometers per hour. (For comparison, the speed of the Neva is 5.8 kilometers per hour.)
When entering the ocean, the volume of water carried by the Gulf Stream is 20 times greater than the flow of all the Earth's rivers, reaching 25 million cubic meters per second! Temperature surface waters The Gulf Stream is about 30 degrees, and salinity is also almost 5 percent higher than the ocean average. (This, by the way, explains more Blue colour waters of the Gulf Stream: it has been proven that the fresher seas have a greenish tint to the waves, and the saltiest waters have a blue and blue tint.)
Having entered the ocean, the Gulf Stream connects with the Antilles Current, after which its width almost doubles and the volume of water triples. The speed of the ocean river sometimes reaches ten kilometers per hour! It is no wonder that Ponce de Leon's caravels could not fight such a powerful current.
True, there are faster currents in the World Ocean. So, in Solfjord off the coast of Norway the current speed is 30 kilometers per hour. (Moscow motorists during rush hour could envy such speed!)
As it moves north, towards the island of Newfoundland, the Gulf Stream deviates more and more to the east, towards Europe. And along the American coast, the cold Labrador Current comes towards it from the Baffin Sea. By the way, it is this that brings huge icebergs here from Greenland, creating a serious threat to shipping. (Let us recall, for example, the Titanic disaster, which occurred precisely in these waters.) But the Gulf Stream also added many sad pages to the tragic chronicle of encounters between ships and ice mountains, without which many shipwrecks simply would not have occurred.
The fact is that fogs often form in the collision zone of warm and cold waters. It is not for nothing that the Newfoundland Bank is called the “pole of fog” of the Atlantic. In winter, a fog shroud envelops ships here every third day, and in summer - every second day.
Nowadays, the movement of icebergs off the American coast is monitored by special “ice patrols” from specially equipped ships and aircraft. And yet there is still shipping in the northwestern sector Atlantic Ocean remains a risky business.
Let's add to this that it is over the Gulf Stream zone that most tropical hurricanes that originate near the Antilles make their way. Over the past 40 years, 250 of them have been recorded here - six hurricanes a year! Calm weather - calm, to put it mildly in maritime language, - a rarity in the waters of the Gulf Stream. It is not for nothing that the English poet Kipling, who loved the sea, when describing the experiences of a boy caught in a storm on a ship, places him in this very area:
If there is green darkness in the cabin windows,
And the spray flies up to the pipes,
And every minute they get up, now the bow, then the stern,
And the servant pouring the soup
Suddenly falls into a cube,
...And my mother’s head is cracking from pain,
And no one laughs, drinks or eats, -
Then you understand what the words mean:
Forty Nord,
Sixty West!
Look at the map: a point with coordinates of 40 degrees north latitude and 60 degrees east longitude is located just south of the island of Newfoundland.
If there is no fog, the meeting places of warm and cold currents can be easily determined by the color of the water: the Gulf Stream is dark blue, and the water of the Labrador Current has a light blue, sometimes even greenish tint. Of course, the temperatures of their waters also differ sharply, and sometimes this difference manifests itself extremely sharply. There was a case when an American research vessel, sailing from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the east, simultaneously recorded a water temperature at the stern of 19 degrees, and at the bow - 31 degrees!
The northeastern continuation of the Gulf Stream - the North Atlantic Current - brings a gigantic mass of warm water to the shores of Northern Europe, seriously affecting the climate of coastal countries. It is estimated that Norway, for example, receives as much heat from this current as would be produced by burning one hundred thousand tons of oil per minute! It is no coincidence that the North Atlantic Current is called the “stove of Northern Europe”.
The Gulf Stream and its continuations, the Canary and North Atlantic currents, have been serving as postmen for the “bottle mail” known to all sailors for many centuries. Most often, messages from ships in distress are found in England and Ireland, located on the path of the main transatlantic flows. In Britain, since the 16th century, the court position of “royal ocean bottle opener” was even established. All vessels with notes found at sea were supposed to be handed over to the Admiralty unopened, in order to avoid the disclosure of secrets that might end up in the messages. It is known that in the first year the “Lord Opener” opened 52 bottles.
Of course, “Neptune mail” is not a very reliable type of communication. Sometimes bottles and other vessels travel at sea for years, or even centuries. So, in 1856, near Gibraltar, a barrel with a coconut filled with resin was found on the shore. The nut contained a parchment with Columbus's report to the King and Queen of Spain about the shipwreck of the Santa Maria caravel. The message of the great navigator traveled in ocean waters for more than 350 years.
And another note revealed the mystery of the disappearance of the large American steamship Pacific. Back in 1856, he broke the speed record, reaching from New York to Liverpool in nine days and twenty hours. After this, “Pacific” became very popular, and there was no end to those wishing to attend it. And in the fall of the same year, taking on board more than 200 passengers, the liner set off on its return journey to New York. After this there was no further information about him. The Pacific did not arrive at its destination port.
And no one would ever have known what happened to the ship if not for the bottle mail. A few years later, the sea washed up a bottle with a note on the Irish shore. It contained only a few words: “On board the Pacifica. The ship is sinking. There is panic on deck. Surrounded by ice on all sides. I know that I will not be saved. I am writing so that my friends will know everything. W. M. Graham.”
And almost a hundred years later, in 1954, a bottle containing a will from one of the Pacific passengers was found in the dunes on the shores of the Gulf of Maine. Having bequeathed her entire fortune to her daughter in a letter, she mentions that the ship is sinking near Cape Flattery after colliding with an iceberg. Thus, one of the many tragic secrets of the North Atlantic was revealed.
Another mystery of the reason for the disappearance of the ship without a trace was helped to solve by the “Neptune mail” in 1880. The British Royal Navy training frigate Atlanta, after sailing with a crew of graduate cadets off the coast of Canada and in the Caribbean Sea in January of this year, called at the Bahamas to replenish supplies and then headed back to her native shores. But the sailing ship did not return to England. The Admiralty announced a reward of 300 guineas for information shedding light on the fate of the frigate. And in June, the captain of a fishing schooner off the coast of Newfoundland caught a bottle with a message in his net. It contained only three lines: “April 17, 1880. Training ship Atlanta. Sinking at coordinates 27 degrees North and 32 degrees West. Let the finder send this note to the newspaper. John Hutchings.”
Many times over the past centuries, boys on the coastal sand or fishermen dismantling their nets discovered vessels with messages. And the half-washed lines of a note from a mud-covered bottle or cocoa can told people about some now-forgotten tragedy of the sea, like the following, caught by a fisherman in Morecabe Bay: “The steamer Himalaya is wrecked off the coast of Newfoundland. The ship has lost its propeller, and the wind tore the sails to shreds. We cannot repair the hole in the bottom, and it is no longer possible to escape unless the Lord works a miracle.
Sometimes, however, the Gulf Stream also performs a less gloomy mission, providing its jets to help lovers. Thus, in the American state of Nebraska, one young emigrant sent a letter to his girlfriend in his native Ireland in a sealed bottle, which he threw into the Mississippi River. The river carried the bottle into the Gulf of Mexico, and the Gulf Stream did the rest. A year later, the message was found on the shore of one of the Irish bays and delivered to the girl.
And at the end of 1970, the American Hoffman from New York, wondering whether to marry or not, decided to resort to the “sea lot.” He sent a marriage proposal to his bride in England in a sealed bottle with an address, which he threw into the ocean. Eleven months later, Hoffman's letter was found on the English coast and delivered to the girl. The American's answer came by telegraph. It read: “I agree. But still, honey, this is so unexpected!”
Gulf Stream continues its postal service today. But now the bottles with documents contain mainly “scientific mail”. With its help, oceanologists study the speed and direction of North Atlantic currents and their seasonal changes.
And passengers of numerous ships crossing the ocean from east to west, if they are lucky and the weather is clear on the way to America, can see with their own eyes how a wide strip of blue water appears on their way, bordered along the edge by a chain of whirlpools. This means that the liner crosses the mighty "river in the ocean" flowing from South Seas, the most famous ocean current in the world with the poetic and warm name of the Gulf Stream
This text is an introductory fragment.Gulf Stream - what is it and where is it? and got the best answer
Answer from Denis Nabatchikov[guru]
GOLF STREAM, a warm current in the mid-latitudes of the North Atlantic Ocean, moving in a northeasterly direction. The main branch of this current originates in the Gulf of Mexico (where its name comes from, meaning translated from in English"Gulf Current") and enters the Atlantic through the Strait of Florida; then the current is diverted north by the Great Bahama Bank, an underwater platform located southeast of the Florida Peninsula.
Coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf Stream carries large accumulations of floating algae of the genus Sargassum and different types thermophilic fish (including flying ones). Off the east coast of Florida, the boundaries of the Gulf Stream are clear, especially the western one. The brilliant blue of this current contrasts sharply with the greenish-gray, colder waters of the North Atlantic.
The flow itself is not just a homogeneous mass of a moving ribbon of water. It consists of several streams having approximately the same direction. At its eastern edge there are numerous rightward curling eddies; some of them are even completely separated from the main stream.
Near the Grand Bahama Bank, the Gulf Stream receives a branch of the North Trade Wind Current and follows generally parallel to the east coast of the United States, but at a short distance from it. It is with the warm waters of this current that the mild winter on the Bermuda Islands is associated. Near Cape Hatteras (the coast of North Carolina), the Gulf Stream turns northeast and heads towards the Great Bank of Newfoundland. Here it meets the cold Labrador Current and also comes into contact with colder air coming from the north. As a result, the area experiences almost constant fog. From the Great Newfoundland Bank, the Gulf Stream moves eastward to the shores of Europe (this part of it is called the Western Wind Current). Approximately in the middle of the North Atlantic, the Gulf Stream divides into two currents. One of them follows further east to the shores of Europe, and then, turning south, forms the Canary Current, the other, called the North Atlantic Current, gradually deviates to the left and continues to move to the northeast. This current passes off the western coast of the British Isles, where a branch is again separated from it, heading west to the southern coast of Iceland - the Irminger Current. Another part of the North Atlantic Current, the Norwegian Current, follows the coast of Norway.
Answer from Maria Tsvetkova[guru]
I think this is a southern current in the sea or ocean
Answer from GüLLi[expert]
It’s like a cold current (or maybe a warm one) somewhere in the ocean =))
Answer from Doom2001[guru]
a warm current in the mid-latitudes of the North Atlantic Ocean, moving in a northeasterly direction. The main branch of this current originates in the Gulf of Mexico
Answer from Anastasia the Great[active]
The Gulf Stream (from the English gulf stream - current from the bay) is a warm sea current in the Atlantic Ocean. Because of the Gulf Stream, European countries adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean have a milder climate than regions on similar geographical latitude: masses of warm water heat the air passing over them, which is carried by westerly winds to Europe.
The Gulf Stream has stopped, and it acts as a thermostat for our planet. It prevents Europe from freezing and Scandinavia from turning into a glacial world. Due to recent events, everything has changed. Now the thermohaline circulation system is gradually dying and will soon disappear completely.
Explosion in the Gulf of Mexico
The culprit of the tragedy was the oil producing company British Petroleum (BP), where in April last year an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform located in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of negligence. The consequences were simply terrible. For five months, the damaged Macondo well leaked uncontrolled oil, the total amount of which amounted to about 4.9 million barrels.
The damage caused to the Atlantic Ocean was simply colossal. Billions of dollars were required to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Having calculated the amount of expenses to be spent on eliminating the accident and paying a federal fine (depending on the scale of pollution), the management of the company (BP) turned to Barack Obama with a request to reduce the area of the polluted ocean by sinking oil to the bottom.
The Obama administration's (BP) request was granted, resulting in the release of approximately 2 million gallons of Corexit into the Atlantic Ocean, as well as several million gallons of other dispersants, in addition to the huge amount of crude oil already spilled. When asked by journalists about how such a measure would affect the ecology of the planet, management (BP) stated that everything would be fine and there was no reason to panic.
Scientists did not take the word of the management of the British Petroleum company and conducted a very simple experiment that clearly showed what was actually happening in the Atlantic Ocean. During the experiment, a regular bath with cold water was used. By giving color to the warm streams of water, one could see the boundaries of the cold layers and warm streams. When oil was added to the bath, the boundaries of the warm water layers were broken and the flowing vortex was effectively destroyed. This experiment showed the principle of action of Corexit, which this moment slowly killing the Gulf Stream.
Before dispersants were added to the water, the causes of the disaster could have been eliminated, of course, a lot of money and time had to be spent on this, but now there is no way to do this, since at the moment there is no effective technology for cleaning the bottom of the bay. Moreover, the oil has already reached the east coast of America and then flowed into the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean, where there are no prospects or possibilities for raising it to the surface and cleaning the ocean floor.
The Gulf Stream has stopped
The first to report the stoppage of the Gulf Stream was Dr. Gianluigi Zangari, a theoretical physicist at the Frascati Institute in Italy. He has been monitoring changes in the Gulf of Mexico for several years. All of his observations are based on photographs from the Colorado CCAR satellite, coordinated with the US Navy's NOAA.
After the publication of his article on irreversible changes in warm ocean currents, all photographs and maps received from CCAR were edited on the satellite's server.
Dr. Zangari is confident that the scale of pollution will only increase over time, since oil has the ability to expand, and this in turn will lead to even more severe consequences of the coming environmental disaster.
The pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico ceased to exist this fall, the latest satellite data clearly shows that the Gulf Stream is now gone, it begins to break up and die about 250 kilometers east of the North Carolina coast, despite the width of the Atlantic Ocean at this latitude exceeds 5000 km.
The picture of the near future of ecology was clearly drawn by a Russian scientist, professor, author of two monographs and 130 publications in the field of physics, acoustics, geophysics, mathematics, physical chemistry, economics Sergei Leonidovich Lopatnikov.
The influence of the Gulf Stream on climate
According to S. Lopatnikov, the abnormal heat that lasted all last summer in Moscow and central Russia, as well as floods in Central Europe and inappropriate cold in Germany and England, is only the beginning of a changing climate system directly related to the Gulf Stream.
The thermohaline water system, in which warm waters flow through cooler ones, has a major influence not only on the ocean, but also on the upper atmosphere up to seven miles high. The absence of the Gulf Stream in the eastern part of the North Atlantic disrupts the normal course of atmospheric flows, which leads to natural disasters.
Based on these considerations, in the near future we will face drought, crop failures, famine, large migrations of people from uninhabitable areas, global cooling (the irony of fate - they were afraid of global warming, but waited for global cooling) and, as a result, an ice age that will first cover the territory North America and then smoothly move to Europe and Asia.
During global icing, if the whole process proceeds quickly, 2/3 of humanity will die, and if the rate of capture of territories by the cold is not so active, then the same 2/3 will die only within a few years.
So. If we delve even deeper into the initial forecasts for the development of the future climate, then at a glance we can safely say the following:
- In the near future, an oil film will appear on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic.
- Oil, artificially deposited to the bottom, will subsequently rise and become a layer between layers of water.
The first above will have two consequences:
- The parameters of moisture evaporation and heat transfer will change water surface and the atmosphere will be disturbed (obviously, less evaporates, and the evaporated liquid is warmer than normal).
- The dynamics of heating and cooling of water masses carried away by currents formed in the Atlantic (including in the Gulf of Mexico and near it) will change.
The second point described above will lead to two more consequences:
- Due to oil in the middle layers of water, it will lose its transparency and will create the effect of a giant lens, which will cause strong heating of the liquid and air itself, inevitably leading to the death of fish, birds and animals.
- The second adverse effect will be a change in the composition, color, viscosity, temperature and salinity of sea water in the Gulf of Mexico, and this will lead to a stop in the annular current. One can only guess about the consequences.
Global catastrophe
Completely new data was also obtained, based on the study of satellite images and precise mathematical analysis made by Dr. Zangari.
“Today, temperature measurements of the Gulf Stream between the 76th and 47th meridians show that it is 10 degrees Celsius colder than it was at the same time last year. Accordingly, we can talk about the presence of a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the stop of the warm Ring Current in the Gulf of Mexico and the drop in Gulf Stream temperature.” The Gulf Stream has stopped.
One can only guess - who does Barack Obama think he is, making such serious decisions alone, without consulting other states? When it comes to a global catastrophe, it is absolutely unacceptable to take into account any territorial principles.
What concerns more than one country cannot be decided by the government of that state. He not only made a decision that was disastrous for the planet, but is also an accomplice in a crime against humanity and the environment.
Update from 2014
According to the latest data, the Gulf Stream has completely disappeared. Tons of oil that entered the ocean caused a mixture of different temperature currents and destroyed the Gulf Stream, which is the “oven of Europe.” The warm and comfortable climate depended 90 percent on it Western Europe and America. Its waters carried 50 million m3 of warm water per second, and the flow power was equivalent to 1 million nuclear power plants.
We can already see the consequences of a global catastrophe. A series of floods, severe frosts and abnormal precipitation swept across the USA, Europe and Russia. In the summer, Europe is flooded with cold, torrential rains, while America cannot cope with abnormal heat and drought.
The warm current, once called the Gulf Stream, carried its waters to the northern latitudes, changing local climate. In the future, this could turn out to be another global catastrophe. Large-scale melting of centuries-old glaciers.
But he won’t think about such distant cataclysms, since we simply won’t live to see them.
It took more than three months to localize the accident on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, during which 800,000 cubic meters of oil spilled into the ocean. The maximum damage to the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem was caused in the first days. For several more months, the liquidators of the accident tried to scoop out the rapidly spreading oil spills, but their attempts were in vain.
Giant oil lenses penetrated deep into the ocean, causing all living things beneath them to die. Seeing that it was useless to deal with the consequences of the accident using old methods, the US government, together with the cabinet of directors of the British Petroleum company, took radical measures, dumping tons of chemical reagents into the ocean that deposited oil to the bottom. Next, to destroy the oil, they decided to use the latest microorganisms specially created for this purpose.
Bacteria synthia
Since the late 80s, American geneticists have been developing artificial microorganisms that feed on hydrocarbons and are capable of absorbing petroleum products, natural gas and coal.
As a result, in 2007, Synthetic Genomics Inc. patented its development. A completely artificial bacterium called “Cynthia”.
Geneticists managed to synthesize artificial DNA and place it in living cell, and then breed the offspring of this microorganism. The developers of Cynthia positioned their brainchild as a means of combating oil spills, but some researchers are confident that it is a biological weapon, the side effect of which is the consumption of oil. This is what they wanted to use to eliminate the consequences of the accident.
At first, synthia actually absorbed oil products, but moving deeper into the ocean, multiplying, creating their own colonies and mutating, the preferences of these bacteria changed dramatically. They abandoned oil and began to eat organic matter: algae, jellyfish, fish, animals and, eventually, people.
Already in 2011, it became clear that the cynthia were no longer engaged in destroying oil spills, but, by multiplying, they ate all life in the ocean.
After some time, frightening information appeared in the press that the inhabitants of the Mexican coast were struck by a certain virus, originally called the “Blue Flu”.
Symptoms of blue flu appeared in people who swam in the Gulf of Mexico, and were expressed in the form of skin ulcers, internal bleeding and damage to the respiratory tract.
At first, the disease was stopped with antibiotics, but the victims were left with severe damage to the skin and respiratory organs. Not knowing how to cope with the scourge, doctors said that it was some new virus unknown to medicine, which they had no means of combating.
It later turned out that the unknown virus was carried by synthia, created in such a way that no antibiotic or chemical affected them. You could say they are practically invulnerable.
Why would bacteria created to eliminate oil pollution be made so resistant to suppression methods? This is where many researchers began to say that this virus was created as a weapon, and its tests were carried out in the Gulf of Mexico, but something went wrong, the virus mutated, and the antidote made to deactivate it did not work.
Whichever version is correct, it doesn’t matter now. Hundreds of residents of the Mexican coast are dying from purulent wounds, and this is due to the cynthia, which are still spreading unhindered through the waters of the world's oceans.
The US authorities are aware of the consequences of their carelessness, but at the same time they do their best to restrain the large-scale dissemination of scandalous information. Having destroyed the Gulf Stream and destroyed the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico, it seemed to the White House administration that it was not enough, and they decided to further aggravate the problem by opening Pandora's box and releasing a deadly infection into the ocean, from which there is no salvation yet.
The Gulf Stream is the hot artery of the planet.
Where is
The Gulf Stream is a warm current in the Atlantic Ocean, carrying huge flows of water from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, famous for its influence on the planet’s climate.
Characteristics
At its core, it is a powerful jet movement of water with a width of 70 to 90 kilometers. The speed of this movement is upper layers ocean can reach several meters per second and drop significantly with depth.
The Gulf Stream originates in the heated Gulf of Mexico, from where it flows out as the Florida Current. Later, on the level Bahamas, connects with the Antilles Current and is finally formed as one of the most significant currents in the world's oceans.
At first, his path runs along the coast of the United States, at some distance from the mainland. Sailing to Cape Hatters, it turns northeast and goes out into the open ocean.
Near Newfoundland, the Gulf Stream encounters the Labrador Current, which itself is quite cold. As a result, abundant evaporation occurs, which is the cause of constant fog in the region. Having lost its course, the stream sets off on a course towards Europe, making large branches along the way, including the Canary Current, which touches southwestern Europe and closes the cycle of Atlantic water movements.
The other branch goes north, again separating into the Icelandic and Norwegian (also washing the UK) directions. What is the significance of such a massive heat carrier traveling along the waves? First of all, this is a softening of the climate, especially affecting Europe. Nowhere else like this northern latitudes There are no water meadows and heat-loving plants cannot grow.
diagram of the Gulf Stream on the map photo
It is thanks to the Gulf Stream that the coasts of Eurasia do not freeze over, and the continent does not turn into continuous tundra. This happens due to the rise of warm air masses above the current, which are carried with the wind, preventing the inhabitants of the Old World from freezing. Another important function of the Gulf Stream is related to ichthyofauna.
Places of contact with cold currents (banks) create a good background for the development of valuable commercial fish species in large numbers, as well as whales and other marine life. The fact is that small organisms that serve as food are captured and carried in the stream of flow, and then they accumulate in those same banks.
Scientists' forecasts
Scientists from many countries present reports on the Gulf Stream from time to time, making disappointing forecasts. According to them, the current is becoming unstable and its pace is slowing down. Moreover, there is an opinion that it has already stopped. And such a serious disruption in the functioning of the world's oceans will entail catastrophic climate changes, which, by the way, are so beloved by Hollywood directors.
Among possible consequences highlight:
- Sharp cooling in Europe and the Atlantic US, leading to a local or global ice age.
- Global warming also promises frosts for the Old World; moreover, pole shifts and blurring of the boundaries of climatic zones are added to this theory.
- Other disasters of a smaller scale, such as tsunamis, hurricanes and floods.
Such hypotheses do not sound very rosy, but in fairness it must be said that there is not sufficient data on the real speed and temperature of the Gulf Stream, at least for most of it. On the contrary, many scientific luminaries argue that the work of the planet’s warm artery will not change, and if this happens, the phenomenon will be temporary.
- The flow is not a homogeneous and continuous mass; it is divided into several streams moving in the same direction. This allows it to easily branch out and create side swirls.
- To generate as much heat in a year as the Gulf Stream produces, more than a million nuclear power plants are needed.
- One of the factors disrupting the circulation of water in the Atlantic is the accident on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform and the subsequent spill of more than five million barrels of oil.
- The maximum speed of movement recorded off the coast of the United States is 9 km/h.
- The temporary stop of the Gulf Stream, according to some scientists, was the cause of the Little Ice Age, which took place about 14 thousand years ago.
- The "banks" of the Gulf Stream and Labrador are home to a large number of whales that come here as a result of migration.
MOSCOW, July 26 – RIA Novosti, Tatyana Pichugina. Since the 19th century, oceanic heating of Western Europe has weakened noticeably. Scientists link this to climate change on the planet and paint grim future scenarios. What threatens the disappearance of the deep-sea currents of the North Atlantic and what is the fate of the Gulf Stream - in the material of RIA Novosti.
Suspiciously cold
Ten years ago, south of Greenland, a section of water surface the size of a European country was discovered that, instead of warming like the rest of the planet, was cooling. It was called "the hole in the global warming", "cold blob". In 2015, it broke the cold temperature record, although it was the hottest year for the planet as a whole.
Scientists have suggested that atmospheric aerosols accumulate above the “cold bubble” and intercept part of the solar radiation. The hypothesis was not confirmed. Now the “hole in global warming” is associated with a slowdown in the North Atlantic Current. This is the name given to part of the deep-sea conveyor that continues the Gulf Stream, carrying heat to the Arctic.
“I used to be very annoyed by headlines in the media that the Gulf Stream would stop. From a strictly scientific point of view, this current is on the surface of the ocean, it is generated by winds. Something in it may change over time, but there is no sign that it will disappear in the coming centuries,” explains RIA Novosti Nikolai Koldunov, an employee of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (Germany).
With regard to the North Atlantic Current, which is often confused with the Gulf Stream, such concerns are appropriate. This current is determined by changes in salinity and water temperature (thermohaline circulation).
Salty warm waters move from south to north. They cool, become heavier and sink deeper. There they slowly turn around and begin the return journey, which takes thousands of years. Thanks to this mechanism, the entire World Ocean is gradually mixed.
© IPCC
How the cycle in the ocean breaks
The global ocean conveyor belt in the North Atlantic Ocean will grind to a halt if the waters become significantly warmer or desalinated.
This already happened at the end of the last ice age. Then, in Canada, the melt waters of the glacier formed the huge Lake Agassiz. About 8,200 years ago, it very quickly poured into the ocean and reduced its salinity to such an extent that the waters in the Labrador Sea and the Norwegian Sea - where the conveyor belt backs up - stopped sinking. The North Atlantic Current literally lost its thrust and stopped. The waters heated in the tropics did not reach the shores of Western Europe, Great Britain and the Scandinavian Peninsula, causing cooling.
© Illustration RIA Novosti
© Illustration RIA Novosti
The connection between warming and currents
This scenario may repeat itself, climate scientists warn. The world's oceans, although slowly, are warming up. Intensifying in the atmosphere Greenhouse effect contributes to the melting of glaciers and the flow of fresh water into the seas. More abundant wet precipitation contributes to desalination. All this weakens the North Atlantic Current, scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Research (Germany) believe.
Together with their American colleagues, they modeled the Atlantic branch of the global ocean conveyor over a long period of time and came to the conclusion that its speed has decreased by 15 percent since the mid-20th century. Their recent paper in Nature has sparked debate among experts.
One of the authors, Stefan Rahmstorf, even published detailed explanations on the collective scientific blog "Real Climate". Consistently rejecting various options, he argued that the “cold bubble” had been predicted and that it could only be explained by a weakening of the North Atlantic Current.
According to another model, this current will weaken by a factor of three if industrial emissions of CO₂ into the atmosphere double compared to 1990 levels. In three hundred years, the conveyor belt in the Atlantic will stop.
© RAPID-AMOC Project
© RAPID-AMOC Project
Imperfect calculations
“We must take into account that all forecasts are made based on modeling results. For the atmosphere, this works relatively well, but we are still poorly modeling the ocean thickness,” notes Koldunov.
According to him, we know the ocean much less well than the atmosphere. Less funds have always been allocated for ocean research, and expeditions are expensive. Without direct observations of water parameters, it is impossible to obtain the necessary input data for the models. Until recently there were very few of them.
“In the 1990s, measurements of the ocean from satellites began, data was received on the topography of the water surface, which can be used to study surface currents on a global scale. At the beginning of the 2000s, the Argo project was launched in the United States - thousands of buoys measuring water parameters at a depth of up to two kilometers and transmitting information to satellites. Data is accumulating, but it is not yet enough,” the scientist continues.
There are direct measurements of water transport in a pipeline in the North Atlantic for ten years - from 2004 to 2014 (RAPID-AMOC project). They do show a slowdown, but they don't say anything about the long-term trend.
Due to the lack of input data and computer power, many things have to be simplified and various tricks used. For example, the group in which Koldunov works works on dynamic global models ocean currents new generation. In the latest work, the scientists showed how to increase resolution in specific areas of the ocean so that there is more detail where it matters, such as the Gulf Stream.
Ocean modeling requires enormous computational resources. And by changing the resolution point by point, you can save expensive supercomputer time.