The Atlantic Gulf Stream was unexpectedly strong during the last ice age – new study
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Wednesday, July 10, 2024
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Ice sheets two miles thick covered much of North America, Scandinavia and the British Isles.
Key Points:
- Ice sheets two miles thick covered much of North America, Scandinavia and the British Isles.
- But our research, now published in Nature, has uncovered at least one surprise in the ice age climate: the Gulf Stream, which carries warm water northwards through the Atlantic, was stronger and deeper than it is today.
Warm water – from Mexico to Norway
- Today, warm salty water from the Gulf of Mexico flows northward as part of the Gulf Stream.
- As part of it flows past Europe it gives off lots of heat keeping the climate of western Europe very mild.
- Then, as the surface water passes north of Iceland, it loses enough heat to increase its density, causing it to sink and form deepwater.
Reconstructing past ocean circulation
- Since we don’t have any data from weather buoys or satellites, we instead reconstructed how the ocean would have circulated in the last ice age using proxy evidence preserved in marine sediment cores, which are long tubes of mud from the bottom of the ocean.
- This allowed us to determine the depth of the Gulf Stream at the time those organisms were alive.