The Gulf Stream has stopped: fact or fiction?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:44

In 2010, the world community was shocked by the news that a new Ice Age might begin in the near future. Italian physicist Gianluigi Zangari, an employee of the Frascati National Institute of Nuclear Physics, made a sensational statement: "The Gulf Stream has stopped!" The scientist came to these conclusions by analyzing data obtained from satellites for observations of atmospheric and oceanic phenomena in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to an Italian scientist, the Gulf Stream stopped as a result of a large-scale environmental tragedy in this area. For several months, British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon well has been leaking crude oil into the waters of the bay. In total, about two hundred million gallons of substance poured out, which formed a kind of "oil volcano" at the bottom. BP management and the US authorities tried to hide this fact by dumping two million gallons of Corexit solvent and a huge amount of other dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico to suppress hydrocarbons. It was not possible to neutralize the consequences of the disaster, it turned outonly to hide the true extent of the damage - part of the bay was cleaned from the oil film, but it is impossible to remove oil from a great depth. And the most irreparable consequence of an oil leak is that the temperature, viscosity and salinity of sea water has changed, as a result of which the boundaries between the layers of cold and warm water have collapsed, because of this the undercurrents have slowed down, and in some places the Gulf Stream has stopped altogether. All this prompted Zangari to make such a statement.

What is the Gulf Stream? This is the main warm current of the Earth, which forms the weather conditions in the territories adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean. It makes the Scandinavian countries habitable and keeps the European countries warm. And if the Gulf Stream has stopped, then we are waiting for the onset of the Ice Age. First of all, England and Ireland, the northern states of America and Canada will be covered with ice, then a sharp cooling will cover North America, Europe and Asia. People will be forced to move to warmer places. Cold, migration, crop failure and, as a result, famine will lead to the extinction of approximately two-thirds of all mankind.

In 2010, the scientist did not believe in the self-healing of the current, as he suspected that the oil leak was continuing. But after some time, satellite images were received that did not confirm the fact that the Gulf Stream had stopped. Photographs from outer space showed that the North Atlantic Current was again carrying its warm waters alongfamiliar route.

So what, the world's global catastrophe is cancelled? There is no definite answer to this question. Scientists say that the Gulf Stream stopped temporarily for a few days, a similar situation was already in 2004, and then there were no negative consequences for the Earth. But supporters of the global conspiracy theory argue that all images of the Gulf of Mexico received from satellites after 2010 are fake. The climate is changing, but gradually, because the waters of the Gulf Stream have not yet cooled completely, and there are several years before the global cooling.