More Heat

Equals cold, in this study. & the U.S. won't commit to do anything.

Atlantic Ocean currents that make northern Europe warmer than it would otherwise be have weakened by about a third over the last 50 years, British oceanographers are reporting.

The scientists, from Britain's National Oceanography Center, said the measured change meshes with what computer climate simulations project should happen as heat-trapping emissions from human activities warm the global climate.

Warming, in theory, could stall salty, sun-heated, north-flowing currents by causing fresher water to build up in high-latitude seas as ice melts and more precipitation falls.

Some climate models have projected that if this process continued, gradual global warming could eventually trigger fairly abrupt European cooling.

...the pattern of change seen at various ocean depths supported the idea that the shift was a significant trend and not random variability.

They also pointed to independent measurements of a long-term drop in the flows of water between some Arctic seas and the North Atlantic as supporting evidence that a slowing of the overall Atlantic circulation was under way.