A highly unusual event has been recorded in a vast water area located north of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Greenland and Iceland.
CNN reported on this.
It was stated that while the rest of the ocean is warming, that region is gradually cooling. New research offers the key to this mystery and indicates that this is a dangerous signal showing it is heading towards one of the world's most alarming climate disaster points.
Called the "cold spot" or "warming hole," this ocean area has cooled by approximately 1°C since 1900.
Scientists have long debated whether this anomaly is related to heat loss from the ocean surface due to changes in wind and clouds, or if it is a sign of weakening in the system of ocean currents that carry heat. The new study concludes that the latter is true, and the obtained results point to a worrying future. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) functions like a giant ocean conveyor, pulling warm water from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere, where the water cools and sinks to the bottom before flowing back south.
Several studies show that as global warming caused by human activity melts glaciers and leads to a large influx of fresh water into the ocean, this system weakens and the sensitive heat and salinity balance of the AMOC is disrupted. Some scientists warn that the AMOC is approaching a critical threshold even within this century, which would lead to an inevitable collapse in the future.
The stopping of the AMOC could cause a rapid rise in sea levels along the U.S. East Coast, expose Europe to severe freezing, and trigger a global disaster by shifting monsoons in Africa and causing prolonged droughts.
Research scientists combined real ocean temperature data obtained from satellites and devices with climate models to better understand what is happening in this part of the Atlantic. They discovered that the cooling in the "cold spot" occurs not only at the ocean surface but also in deep ocean layers, where atmospheric conditions such as wind and cloud effects are very weak./oxu.az