Is the ocean current responsible for the climate we enjoy now and does salinity drive the currents?

Question

If salinity drives the ocean currents and the currents give us our climate, then can the melting of an insumountable amount of fresh water from the glaciers, cause the current to change? If it can what will be the impact on the global climate???

Answer 1

some scientists fear that exact scenario; lower salinity stalls the Gulf Stream and then England Ireland Scotland and Norway end up with a climate like northern Canada or Siberia..

go look up the Gulf Stream and be amazed that this current coming out of the Gulf of Mexico keeps NW Europe about 10 degrees warmer than it should be......

Answer 2

Rofe is correct. It wouldn't make a significant difference. Algore suggested that if all of Greenland melted and spilled into the Atlantic it might disrupt the Gulf Stream. That may have happened 10,000 years ago in a period called the Younger Dryas. It happened with the continental glaciers melted and suddenly discharged through the St. Lawrence Sea Way into the North Atlantic. There is almost zero chance of that happening to any significant degree.

Answer 3

most defiantly. this happened already before, when the Lake Agassiz in North America drained suddenly because of an ice damn failure it stop the north Atlantic currents will the sudden huge increase of fresh water. scientists figure that this is what put Europe back into ice age for another thousand some years. with the melting of Greenland ice and Antarctica's ice scientists are afraid that something like this could happen again.