Claire Nouvian est une environnementaliste qui voue sa carrière à sensibiliser le public et les autorités aux problèmes posés par l’exploitation des océans profonds et des espèces très vulnérables...
Xavier Pastor est Directeur Exécutif d'Oceana en Europe. Biologiste marin, il a commencé sa carrière professionnelle à l'Institut Océanographique Espagnol et plus tard a fondé Greenpeace Espagne en...
Alistair Gammell is director of the Chagos campaign, a project of the Pew Environment Group’s Global Ocean Legacy initiative to help secure the establishment of large, world-class marine reserves....
Susan Lieberman is Deputy Director of The Pew Environment Group and head of the Cites Pew Delegation at the CITES summit in Doha.
Fred Pearce is journalist specialized in the environment and development. He was born in the United Kingdom and studied geography in the University of Cambridge. His latest book is When the Rivers...
New Scientist was founded in 1956, this internationally-focused weekly British magazine aims at giving readers exhaustive information on recent worldwide developments in science from a scientific,...
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It was founded on 16 October 1945 in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. In 1951 its...
Carsten Rühlemann is a researcher at the MARUM research centre at the University of Bremen in Germany. Researchers at MARUM study the oceans’ impact on the planet. Mr Rühlemann works in the Marine...
Richard Seager has been a researcher at the University of Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (New York) since 1992, studying the influence of tropical atmosphere-ocean interactions on...
Peter U. Clark has been a researcher in the Department of Geosciences at Oregon State University since 1988. He specializes in glacial geography, quaternary stratigraphy and paleoclimatology. Mr...
Global warming is one of today’s hot topics, leading to a number of studies seeking to explain its origin and examine its consequences. While we can now identify the source of global warming, its impact is still difficult to predict. Nevertheless, certain numerical models indicate an overall rise in temperature of several degrees over the coming years.
The melting ice in the Northern Hemisphere brought on by global warming leads to higher freshwater levels. This additional freshwater may have the potential to slow down or even stop thermohaline circulation – including the Gulf Stream, which is responsible for Europe’s mild climate. Paradoxically, several scientists believe that global warming could bring Europe into another ice age. An intense cooling triggered by reduced thermohaline circulation has already produced a similar event, Younger Dryas, approximately 13 000 years ago.
However, the theory of a new European ice age is controversial. Some scientists think this disturbance will have a relatively mild effect compared to all of the changes sparked by global warming, whose origin is anthropic and therefore without a historical equivalent. Others, such as Richard Seager, are sceptical of the Gulf Stream’s contribution to Europe’s mild climate, and believe that the slowdown will not lead to cooling.
The following articles present these different viewpoints.
Rio de Janeiro - Brésil : un baigneur voit les immenses vagues provoquée par le raz-de- marée à Pepino beach avril 2008. © AFP photo Antonio Scorza
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