It's A Flow News Day

There are times when bad news can, in a way, be good news.  On December 1st, British researchers released a report so unsettling that it might even get Americans, that great environmental Rip-Van-Winkle of a people, to wake up and care about climate change.

The report, published in the journal Nature by scientists from the U.K.'s National Oceanography Center, shows significant slowing of the Atlantic currents that branch off from the Gulf Stream and carry warm water further north.  Those currents are the reason that London doesn't look more like Helsinki or Murmansk.

The research team's leader says they found a "30 percent drop in the flow of warming waters since a similar set of measurements were taken in 1957", according to Reuters.  What's more, they say their findings lead them to believe that a shift in overall Atlantic circulation may be underway.

The notion that the Gulf Stream, which is responsible for the relatively balmy quality of life in the Canadian Maritime provinces and northern Europe, is grinding to an inexorable halt, is not a fait acompli.   It's more like we just learned that one of the canaries is our planetary bird cage has come down with -- say -- Avian flu.  It's a hint that something is amiss in nature's coal mine and that we need to keep digging.