National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Cooler Climate May Hit N. America, Europe Next Decade


Email to a Friend	<< Back to Full Story

A map shows the general thermohaline circulation—the large-scale movement of water through the oceans—with warm surface water indicated in red and cold deep water in blue.

A new study suggests that the circulation in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific will undergo a natural weakening in the coming decade, putting a temporary cool spell over Europe and North America and briefly masking the long-term trend of rising temperatures due to global warming.

Image by Robert Simmon/NASA, adapted from the IPCC 2001 and Rahmstorf 2002