| | Datum: | 13.05.05 | | Titel: | Wunsch, Carl, 2004. Gulf Stream safe if wind blows and Earth turns. | | Link: | | | Details1: | Wunsch, Carl, 2004. Gulf Stream safe if wind blows and Earth turns.
Correspondence in Nature Vol. 428, No 6983, p. 601, April 8, 2004
"Gulf Stream safe if wind blows and Earth turns
Sir – Your News story "Gulf Stream probed for early warnings of
system failure" (Nature 427, 769 (2004)) discusses what the climate in the
south of England would be like "without the Gulf Stream". Sadly, this phrase
has been seen far too often, usually in newspapers concerned with the
unlikely possibility of a new ice age in Britain triggered by the loss of
the Gulf Stream.
European readers should be reassured that the Gulf Stream's
existence is a consequence of the large-scale wind system over the North
Atlantic Ocean, and of the nature of fluid motion on a rotating planet. The
only way to produce an ocean circulation without a Gulf Stream is either to
turn off the wind system, or to stop the Earth's rotation, or both.
Real questions exist about conceivable changes in the ocean
circulation and its climate consequences. However, such discussions are not
helped by hyperbole and alarmism. The occurrence of a climate state without
the Gulf Stream any time soon — within tens of millions of years — has a
probability of little more than zero.
Carl Wunsch
Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA"
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