Ice Melting Could Slow Vital Ocean Current - Which Could Slightly Slow Melting

By Stephen Luntz | IFL Science |

IFL SCIENCE - Complementary studies by separate teams have explored the interactions between melting ice in the North Atlantic and the flow of a crucial ocean current. One intensifies the alarm many oceanographers have already expressed: that more rapid melting will cause a crucial part of the Gulf Stream system to slow or even stop, with disastrous consequences. The other reveals that if that happens, one of the few beneficial effects will be a decrease in the Arctic melting that caused the problem – but probably not enough.

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University of California Riverside graduate student Yu-Chi Lee is part of a team that has tried. They calculate that a slowing AMOC could keep Arctic temperatures 2° C (3.6° F) cooler than they would be in 2100 if AMOC maintained current flow. That sounds encouraging – until you realize that under their calculations the region warms by a shocking 8° C (14.4° F) instead of a catastrophic 10° C (18° F).

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