The study was a collaboration between researchers at the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of California, San Diego, according to The New York Post.
Researchers say the ocean current in question is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is a conveyor belt of the ocean that funnels warm water toward the ocean surface from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere.
A key part of the current is the Gulf Stream, which runs from the Gulf of America to the East Coast and across the Atlantic to Europe and helps maintain a milder climate in parts of Europe including the U.K. and even the East Coast of the U.S.
Bonner Cohen is a senior policy analyst at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and said that if the current collapsed it would be much colder in some places but expresses doubt collapse will occur.
Collapse would likely usher in a new ice age and dramatically increase sea levels, the study finds.
The source of the problem is the thawing of the Greenland Ice sheet amid warming temperatures. This is causing meltwater runoff to reach the North Atlantic, leading to stagnation.
Undersea currents have changed courses for unknown reasons, he said.
What’s different now than in the times of kings and queens, Cohen wonders?
"The study references warming temperatures. Well, we've had warming temperatures before. As a matter of fact, during Medieval Times, the climate of the Earth was warmer than it is now. And yet the phenomenon that they were talking about in their study, that never happened. In other words, even when the climate was demonstrably warmer than it is now, the Gulf Stream functioned as it always had,” he said.
