Gulf Stream reportedly slows

As far as I can tell, this piece of news slipped underneath most people's radar:

Climate change researchers have detected the first signs of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream — the mighty ocean current that keeps Britain and Europe from freezing.

They have found that one of the “engines” driving the Gulf Stream — the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea — has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength.

The weakening, apparently caused by global warming, could herald big changes in the current over the next few years or decades. Paradoxically, it could lead to Britain and northwestern and Europe undergoing a sharp drop in temperatures.

One doesn't need to go out and rent The Day After Tomorrow to realize that this is quite an ominous development.

(via life-info.de)