The warm currents from the tropics that sweep north along the eastern
coast
of the US and Canada have slowed 30% since 1992. The change may presage

colder winters for the north-east of North America and Europe.


Not to mention the more violent storms the extra heat in the
mid-lattitude
atmosphere will create.


Extract:


"The Atlantic conveyor carries deep cold water from the Arctic down
south to
the equator and returns to the north warm water, which is close to the
surface."


"If the Atlantic Ocean is moving less heat northwards, then the
atmosphere
must take up the slack to keep the tropics-to-poles system balanced.
McBean
said the most likely way for this to happen would be an increase in
violent
storms in the area from the mid-United States to mid-Canada."


.......


Disruption of the Atlantic conveyor had been widely predicted.


A report from the U.S. defence department earlier this year noted the
consequences of a slowdown in the Atlantic conveyor, saying that the
climate of Britain and northern Europe would be more like Siberia's and
the
average rainfall would decline by 30 per cent.


But yesterday's report conducted by a research team from Britain's
National
Oceanography Centre found the first hard evidence for the change after
comparing temperature and salinity readings from last year to four
previous
snapshots dating back to 1957 ? all recorded by monitoring devices
along a
line from Morocco to Miami.


Measurements in 1981 and 1992 had shown little change from the readings
of
1957.


............


http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...=thestar/Layou...