The Gulf Stream moves north

2011/03/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Botanika
• Geografia
• Hidrologia
• Ozeanografia

After studying the Canadian coast of Nova Scotia, researchers at the Memorial University of Newfoundland have announced that in recent decades the Gulf Stream has gone north. They suspect it is a movement produced as a result of climate change.

It analyzes the environment of Nova Scotia, area in which are the cold currents of the Labrador coming from the north and the temperate currents of the Gulf of the south. The Gulf water is richer in nutrients than that of the Labrador and is more stratified, and in both the proportions of nitrogen isotopes are different. Therefore, they do not leave the same footprint either in sediments or in living beings, and you can know how far each current has come and, therefore, whether it has had movement or not.

In particular, the researchers have reviewed the corals to collect data from movements above and below the two currents. In fact, only with regard to sediments, the observed changes can be placed in an interval of 150 years; they cannot determine when they are. This is due, among other things, to the fact that living beings raise and mix the sediments. As for corals, in the last 1,800 years they have been able to determine how far the two currents have arrived. Specifically, the proportion of isotopes 15 N/14 N in the breeding rings of the corals has been measured.