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    The Atlantic

    A Counterintuitive Effect of Global Warming

    For decades, scientists have debated the possibility that a vital ocean-current system could plunge Europe into an abrupt cooldown.
    by Zoë Schlanger Jan 25, 2024 4 minutes
    Source: Illustration by Matteo Giuseppe Pani

    This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.

    Updated at 12:05 p.m. ET on January 26, 2024.

    In a 1998 Atlantic cover story, William H. Calvin offered perhaps the best oceanography lesson to appear in a major national magazine. It was also a call for concern: He drew on the research of the legendary Columbia University climate scientist Wallace Broecker to explain the relationship between ocean currents and the climate, and warn about a rather counterintuitive tipping point that our age of global warming could cause. By warming the planet, humanity might kick off a disastrous oceanographic flip-flop.

    A part of the great underwater conveyor belt

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