African ocean current may help keep Europe warm

BBC : In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted that increased greenhouse gas concentrations would lead to a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which includes the Gulf Stream. The result would be cooler temperatures in Europe. A group of researchers who have just published a new study in Nature say, however, that changes to another ocean current, the Agulhas Current, could keep Europe warm even if the Gulf Stream switches off. The Agulhas Current flows southward down the eastern coast of Africa, and although most of the water heads east back into the Indian Ocean, some of it leaks around Africa’s southern tipCape Agulhasand flows into the Atlantic. One of those researchers, Lisa Beal from the Rosen School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami, Florida, said that research on the current to date has been sparse but that wind shifts farther south make it likely that the Agulhas Leakage is increasing. “This could mean that current IPCC model predictions for the next century are wrong and there will be no cooling in the North Atlantic to partially offset the effects of global climate change over North America and Europe,” said Beal.