5 ms·
> As long as the winds blow and the Earth spins, we will have a Gulf Stream I don't think this is true. Didn't the Gulf Stream shut off during the Ice Ages? At
by circlefavshape 5y ago
> As long as the winds blow and the Earth spins, we will have a Gulf Stream
I don't think this is true. Didn't the Gulf Stream shut off during the Ice Ages? At least that's what I learned at college in the early 90s
- roter 5y agoThe Gulf Stream doesn't shut down. The AMOC shuts off or decreases in intensity. This is thought to have led to a number of interesting climate blips since coming out of the last ice-age. i.e. melt water from North American land sheets flows into North Atlantic, making it less dense, and less likely to sink. This leads to a lessening in the AMOC. The Gulf Stream would have still flowed but perhaps not as intense nor have been "pulled" as far northward. One such event was 8200 years ago [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2-kiloyear_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2-kiloyear_event