Climate The Gulf Stream has not yet weakened, according to a new Bernese study
According to a new Bernese study, the Gulf Stream has not yet weakened. This puts earlier studies into perspective, which came to the conclusion that the Gulf Stream is increasingly losing strength. Such a development would have serious consequences for the climate.
15.01.2025, 13:57
SDA
With a view to future climate change and its consequences, however, it is not appropriate to sound the all-clear, emphasized Jens Terhaar, head of the study, in a press release issued by the University of Bern on Wednesday.
Ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which includes the Gulf Stream, influences the climate worldwide. The Gulf Stream transports warm water from the tropics into the North Atlantic. On its way towards the Arctic, the water in the North Atlantic Current cools and gains salinity through evaporation, making it heavier and sinking into the depths.
There are fears that the system could collapse if temperatures rise in the north and the melting ice reduces the salt content. Such a collapse would have serious consequences, as the University of Bern emphasizes in its press release. Europe would become much colder. Other regions would be affected by heatwaves, droughts or changes in the monsoon.
Already weakened?
Whether this circulation has already weakened as a result of climate change cannot be said with certainty, according to the researchers from Bern, as direct observations have only been available for 20 years.
In the new study, which was published on Wednesday in the journal "Nature Communications", the research team from the University of Bern and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the USA makes a new contribution to this debate. Using a new method based on 24 Earth system models and observations of the heat flow between the ocean and atmosphere in the North Atlantic, they have come to the conclusion that a slowdown between 1963 and 2017 is not detectable.
Although these reconstructions using new methods are more robust than the previous ones, they are also subject to "limitations and reservations", the researchers emphasized. However, it is unlikely that the circulation has weakened in the last 60 years.
