![\"Michele](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MicheleDebczak.png\")
<\/p>\nA patch of water south of Greenland and Iceland has cooled by nearly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900. A new study suggests that it shows a crucial system of ocean currents is weakening, which could alter Earth\u2019s climate<\/p>\n
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Michele Debczak<\/a><\/p>\n | Correspondent<\/p>\n June 30, 2026<\/p>\n The “cold blob,” shown in blue near the top, is also called the Atlantic “warming hole.” The ocean has been heating up over the past century, largely due to human activity that produces heat-trapping\u00a0greenhouse gases. But strangely, a patch of the Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland and Iceland has been trending in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n While this may sound like good news for our warming planet, the \u201ccold blob\u201d could be a sign of a more concerning pattern with far-reaching effects.<\/p>\n In a study published on May 28 in the journal\u00a0Geophysical Research Letters<\/a>, a team of scientists used observations dating back to 1870 to analyze the mysterious phenomenon. Their findings suggest that the cold blob may have resulted from broader changes taking place throughout a crucial system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean, which could drastically alter the Earth\u2019s climate.<\/p>\n Worldwide, the sea surface temperatures have risen by an average of about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900, but the cold blob has chilled<\/a> by almost that amount during that period. Some scientists suspect that the cooling patch of water is an isolated event caused by interactions with the local atmosphere<\/a>. In 2022, a team reported<\/a>\u00a0that increased westerly winds were removing heat from the ocean surface there.<\/p>\n Other researchers, however, say that it\u2019s a sign that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is weakening<\/a>. The AMOC is a system of currents of varying depths that spans<\/a> the entire Atlantic Ocean. This \u201cglobal conveyor belt<\/a>\u201d is responsible for carrying warm water to the North Atlantic and cold water to the south. Past research suggests that the AMOC is slowing due to climate change<\/a>, and, if it continues, it could cause sea level rise on the U.S. East Coast, cool Europe and disrupt precipitation patterns in parts of South America, Africa and India, among other alterations.<\/p>\n In the new study, researchers analyzed the cold blob and climate using weather observations from satellites, buoys and ships. Their work hints that the blob\u2019s cooler temperatures extend deep below the surface, so rather than losing its heat to the atmosphere, it\u2019s possible that the AMOC isn\u2019t delivering much warm water to the area in the first place.<\/p>\n Winds and other local atmospheric influences explain only a \u201cmodest fraction\u201d of the cold blob, study co-author Stefan Rahmstorf<\/a>, a physical oceanographer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, tells New Scientist<\/a>\u2019s Alec Luhn. \u201cEven if, in some modeling approaches, it seems possible that the cold blob is caused by the atmosphere, in fact, the data show it is caused by the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n Quick fact: Could a giant dam save the AMOC?<\/p>\n In April, a team of researchers proposed that damming the Bering Strait<\/a>\u2014a narrow waterway between Russia and Alaska\u2014could extend the lifespan of this key system of ocean currents.<\/p>\n \u201cThe region to the south of Greenland is highly sensitive to AMOC change,\u201d\u00a0Wei Liu<\/a>, a climate scientist at the University of California, Riverside who was not involved in the study, tells\u00a0USA Today<\/a>\u2019s Janet Loehrke.<\/p>\n Because of that, some scientists worry that it could be an early warning sign of the system\u2019s eventual collapse. As Ben Noll reports for the\u00a0Washington Post<\/a>, that would have catastrophic effects in parts of Northern Europe, potentially plunging Iceland into winters that reach minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. This proposal is controversial, however, and many experts say that fears of a total AMOC collapse happening anytime soon are overblown. But that doesn\u2019t mean the cold blob isn\u2019t a cause for concern.<\/p>\n \u201cEven without a collapse, a weakening of the AMOC could have serious climate impacts,\u201d says ocean scientist\u00a0Jonathan Baker<\/a> of the Met Office, the U.K.\u2019s weather service, who was not involved in the study, to\u00a0Yale Environment 360<\/a>\u2019s Nicola Jones. The current system also carries nutrients and affects the ocean\u2019s salinity levels, which means that any changes could also spell trouble for the marine ecosystems that depend on it.<\/p>\n Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A patch of water south of Greenland and Iceland has cooled by nearly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-523687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Visualization](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/16-008-nasa-2015recordwarmglobalyearsince1880-20160120.png\")
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\n NASA SVS<\/p>\n