Online Video Guide

So you think global warming won't affect you? Wait until the great Atlantic Conveyor shuts down. And find out what's already happening in Alaska. In the last couple of decades, oceanographers have come to understand the central role the Gulf Stream plays in the enormous ocean currents that circle the globe. It brings a third of all the sun's heat that falls on the North Atlantic up to northern latitudes and, in the process, warms the northeast U.S., Europe and Scandinavia. Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have found that in recent decades significant amounts of freshwater have been flowing into the Nordic Seas from the Arctic Ocean to the north that could potentially disrupt the operation of the Ocean Conveyor's recirculation pump, in turn reducing or even shutting down the flow of the Gulf Stream.