North Atlantic 'Cold Blob' Linked to Europe's Record Heat Dome
Researchers say declining ocean heat transport, not surface heat loss, explains the cooling and could help drive longer European heatwaves.
- Over 100 million Europeans are suffering in temperatures above 35C as a heat dome settles over the continent, with scientists linking the extreme weather to a North Atlantic 'cold blob'.
- Marilena Oltmanns, an ocean and climate physicist at the University of Bremen, found the cold anomaly creates a front that 'acts like a guide,' forcing the jet stream to bend northward around Europe.
- A 2016 study suggests these Atlantic anomalies are a 'common precursor' to major heatwaves, and researcher Sabine Bischof of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel stated, 'With this cold anomaly, we have longer and more intense heatwaves in Europe.'
- Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, stated he is 'very worried' about a weakening Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, noting a shutdown would have 'massive' consequences.
- Gerard McCarthy, oceanographer at Maynooth University, cautioned that a cold Atlantic does not prevent European warming, stating 'some of the hot extremes can actually be exacerbated by this cold blob.
32 Articles
32 Articles
While a large part of Europe is facing extreme temperatures, researchers are analysing the role that an apparently paradoxical phenomenon could play: an unusual stretch of cold water in the North Atlantic Ocean. The article Researchers are analyzing an unusual phenomenon in the Atlantic, while Europe melts to more than 40 degrees. What specialists have discovered first appears in Romania TV.
A mass of cold water in the North Atlantic, south of Iceland and Greenland, is among the factors that could intensify heat waves in Europe, according to several scientific researches. Although the phenomenon seems contradictory, specialists explained that this anomaly modifies the atmospheric circulation and favors conditions that raise temperatures on the continent. The region, known as “cold blob” or “cold mass”, maintains temperatures lower t…
In the Atlantic Ocean, south of Greenland and Iceland, there is an area that worries scientists about their unusual behavior. Known as “warming hole” (in Spanish, cold spot), the area had a temperature decrease of approximately 1.8°F (1°C) since the 19th century.Features of the cold spot and the role of ocean currentsScientists believe that this cooling does not originate in the surface of the sea, but in changes that occur in the depths of the …
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