The climate of the world is a hugely complex thing that nobody, not even the most advanced computer models, can fully understand. There are some things, however, that are known to have a bigger impact than others, and studying them can provide important data to researchers.

One of those things is the Gulf Stream, which is an area of warmer water that goes across the North Atlantic Ocean. According to a study that has been published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, the Gulf Stream is slowly migrating North.

The study suggests that this migration is good evidence that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is continuing to lose strength and may even be getting close to a full collapse.

The Gulf Stream and the AMOC are part of the same system, with the AMOC being the total system that the Gulf Stream is just one piece of.

Historically, this system transported warmer, saltier water from the tropics northward toward Europe. This has a major impact on the weather throughout much of Europe.

The scientists who conducted the study are concerned that as the overall ocean temperatures warm and the ice from Greenland melts, it could result in the AMOC coming to a stop. They already estimate that there has been a 15% reduction in the strength of the AMOC since the 1950’s.

With the Gulf Stream portion of this system moving northward, the researchers suspect that this is just the latest warning sign that the total system is in danger of collapsing. There is strong evidence that shows that the Gulf Stream has been moving north since at least the early 1990s.

In the study, the researchers predict that the drift will continue by about 133 kilometers (83 miles) over the course of the next several centuries, at which point it would jump north by an additional 219 kilometers (136 miles) in just two years.

While it may be hard for some to worry about this type of movement over the course of centuries, it will change the climate not just in Europe in the near-term, but potentially of people throughout North America and the rest of the world too.

As always, there is debate about many aspects of this study, but it does provide important data that can be used for other climate models and predictions going forward.

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