Director of environmental programs of the all-Russian public organization “Green Patrol” Roman Pukalov, in a conversation with RT, said whether the “devastating” weakening of key currents in the Atlantic Ocean will affect Russia.
According to the expert, the slowdown of the Gulf Stream and its branches has been talked about for decades.
“Violation of the existing balance of temperature and salinity, density of Atlantic waters leads to a slowdown of the Gulf Stream and all its branches. Is this the first time? No, most paleoclimatologists believe that something similar happened in Europe in the 14th-19th centuries, when the so-called Little Ice Age was observed,” said Pukalov.
He noted that currently there is a “domino effect” in climate change.
“The general increase in temperature accelerates the melting of the already “non-permafrost”, with the release of huge amounts of methane, including from the bottom of the northern seas, a much more aggressive greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. An increase in the number and area of forest fires adds to the volume of emissions. The melting of Arctic glaciers is desalinated by warm salty currents, further slowing their speed,” the ecologist explained.
He also talked about how such a phenomenon could affect Russia.
“Murmansk and Severomorsk ports will no longer be ice-free, the Kola Bay will freeze. Lower temperatures will affect most of the Northwestern Federal District. The proximity of a huge “island of cold” over Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and so on will certainly cause an increase in the number of dangerous meteorological phenomena throughout the European part of Russia. Showers, hurricanes, sudden temperature changes, spring frosts and long periods of summer drought, and so on,” Pukalov explained.
In his opinion, fewer of these phenomena will occur in the south of the Urals, Western and parts of Eastern Siberia.
“But we will have to fight forest fires in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Yakutia, and Irkutsk Region for many decades to come. Of course, further climate changes will lead to a shift of all geographical zones to the north. Where there is now southern taiga, in a few decades there may be forest-steppe,” the specialist concluded.
Earlier, more than 40 leading climate scientists wrote an open letter to Nordic leaders to warn of a “devastating” weakening of key currents in the Atlantic Ocean.
