How does glaciers and ice caps melting effect the major ocean currents?
The way the oceans circulate depend a lot on temperature and salinity differences between the polar waters and the equatorial waters. I’ve seen descriptions of this several times, going way back 20 years. I’m not sure on all the details but I do know that the current moving northward along the eastern seaboard of the US is warm, salty water that turns to the east in the northern Atlantic around Nova Scotia and moves toward England. As it gets to the area of Europe it becomes cooler because of the influence of the arctic water, and then it sinks from the surface down to the bottom of the ocean and flows south. The ocean is a big machine for transferring heat, and it affects the climates around the coasts of all the countries that touch it. The effect of the greater meltwater coming off the arctic is to break up the current pattern, and the last I heard, there is an on-going study of the area where the north atlantic current sinks to the bottom to see if it is being disrupted. If the pat
