Researchers suspect that a sudden cold wave hit Europe 120,000 years ago may repeat itself, according to a recent press release from Stockholm University. The cooling seemed to be a reaction to high temperatures that immediately preceded it, resulting in a melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and disruption of the Gulf Stream that may have changed the course of climate in Europe.<\/p>\n
Scientists used Finnish plant and insect fossil data from the time as well as Norwegian sea sediment samples to draw their conclusions. Evidence suggested the cooling event followed a period of less North Atlantic deep water formation than typical and a Gulf Stream that didn\u2019t move as far north as usual to warm northern Europe.<\/p>\n
After the abrupt cooling, temperatures in Europe were 2-4 Celsius below normal and stayed that way for 500 to 1,000 years. The implication is that after a period of global warming, such as in the current global climate, there may appear a major cooling event that is completely natural, as the warm planet shifts towards rebalancing its climate.<\/p>\n
Top image:\u00a0Map of the Gulf Stream. (Credit: RedAndr\/CC BY-SA 4.0)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Researchers suspect that a sudden cold wave hit Europe 120,000 years ago may repeat itself, according to a recent press release from Stockholm University. The cooling seemed to be a reaction to high temperatures that immediately preceded it, resulting in a melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and disruption of the Gulf Stream that may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":22324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[157,315,103,347],"class_list":["post-22326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-atmosphere","tag-climate-change","tag-gulf-stream","tag-news-2","tag-oceans-coasts"],"remote_post_permalink":false,"remote_post_featured_image":false,"yoast_head":"\n