Corrente do Golfo

Mário Barros

Furacão
Registo
18 Nov 2006
Mensagens
12,603
Local
Maçores (Torre de Moncorvo) / Algueirão (Sintra)
Andava para aqui numas pesquisas de tempestades de neve e dei com isto :p será que vamos ter que comprar latas de atum e mais uns cobertores para este Inverno ?? :lmao::lmao: é sabido que as anomalias andam um pouco malucas...mas nunca se sabe.

Cenário interessante sem dúvida, ao menos já se andam a fazer simulações para o frio....Simulação elaborada pelo Metoffice

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The Gulf Stream (or North Atlantic Drift, to give it its proper title) brings warmer water from lower latitudes to the north-east Atlantic, and gives north-west Europe a milder climate than it would otherwise have.
The mechanism driving circulation in the North Atlantic, of which the Gulf Stream is a part, is shown in the below image.



This mechanism could be affected by man-made global warming in several ways, for example by increased rainfall over the N Atlantic, and hence there is the potential for the Gulf Stream to be reduced, or even switched-off, by man's activities.



When we use the Hadley Centre climate model to look at the response of the N Atlantic ocean circulation to future man-made emissions, shown in the above image, we see that reductions of about 20% by 2100 are predicted, rather than a complete shutdown. Other good climate models see greater or lesser reductions, but none produces a shutdown over the next 100 years.
The Hadley Centre model has also been used to investigate the impact on climate of a hypothetical shut-down of the THC. It predicts that the whole of the northern hemisphere would be cooled, especially the north Atlantic; the UK might see a cooling of 3–5 °C. Daily minimum temperatures in central England in winter could plunge by 10 or 20 °C, and this would likely have a bigger effect on UK society than global warming. However, as was pointed out above, this is a 'what-if' scenario and not a prediction.
The model predictions of only partial shut-down of the THC seem reassuring, but we do not fully understand the reasons for the stability of the ocean circulation, and there have been recent measurements in the N Atlantic which seem to be at variance with model simulations. Hence, research continues to quantify the risk of this potentially high-impact outcome of climate change.