Current 'five times stronger' than Gulf Stream sparks global disaster fears after slowdown

A massive spinning ocean current five times stronger than the Gulf Stream could collapse sparking a global environmental disaster, scientists warn. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), which is 100 times larger in volume than the Amazon River, wraps completely around the frozen South Pole continent of Antarctica.

Like the Gulf Stream, the current which brings warm water to the UK across the North Atlantic, the ACC is a vital oceanic system which influences weather systems and climate worldwide. The warm waters of the Gulf Stream flowing towards Britain are responsible for keeping the UK, and Europe, significantly warmer than other locations at the same latitude elsewhere on the globe. According to studies of core samples extracted by the University of Bonn, the ACC is undergoing a slowdown in speed and power, and is now operating at three times less the pace it was 130,000 years ago.

The Mail Online reports the ACC is responsible for carrying cold and warm water currents, as well as dissolved carbon and nutrients between oceans all over the planet.

University of Bonn expedition lead Dr Michael Weber said: "The velocity in the second-to-last warm period, roughly 130,000 years ago, was more than three times greater than in the last millennia comprising the current warm period."

Dr Bishakhdatta Gayen, associate professor at the University of Melbourne, commented on the study, saying: "If this current 'engine' breaks down, there could be severe consequences, including more climate variability, with greater extremes in certain regions, and accelerated global warming due to a reduction in the ocean's capacity to act as a carbon sink."

The ACC carries water around the southern region of the Earth sharing water and nutrients between the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.

The Bonn scientists looked at sediment samples collected by a research vessel in the Scotia Sea north of the Antarctic continent.

Using a supercomputer, researchers from the University of Melbourne simulated the effect of climate change on the ACC and worryingly found rising temperatures could slow down the flow by a futher 20% by 2050.