There is evidence of lower salinity in the North Atlantic coming from melting of polar ice caps and diluting the ocean with more fresh water. An increased amount of fresh water could come from glaciers or sea ice melting, an increased amount of precipitation, or from rivers. The increase of freshwater in the oceans could have a damaging effect on the Ocean Conveyor (currents which transport warm water from the tropics to Northern latitudes on the surface; the water cools as it travels north, and then sinks and travels south again). There are different scenarios for the slowing down of the Ocean Conveyor between the next two decade or in a hundred years (Gagosian, 2007).
There is paleoclimatic evidence for rapid climatic changes as a result of the shut down of the Ocean Conveyor. If this were to happen, the Gulf Stream could possibly be deflected downwards, which would prevent the transfer of warm water from the tropics to the high Northern latitudes. In this scenario the high latitude would go through a very rapid cooling periods that could have devastating effects on the ecosystem (Gagosian, 2007).
For this reason we assert that this region should be carefully monitored in order to recognize this trend early. There should also be a significant effort put into maintaining the robustness of the ecosystem in this area. To do this, restrictions placed on the fishery in this region should be higher than they would otherwise be set. If research proves this scenario is not as severe as predicted, or that change will happen on longer time scales, such restrictions could be scaled back.
In:
http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2011/finalwebsite/solutions/climate.shtml
Cada vez mais existem confirmações de que a corrente do golfo tem-se misturado cada vez mais com água doce no norte do Atlântico, já se sabe em que pode resultar