An armada of robot submarines and marine sensors are to be deployed across
the Atlantic, from Florida to the Canary Islands, to provide early warning that
the Gulf Stream might be failing, an event that would trigger cataclysmic
freezing in Britain for decades.
The £16m system, called Rapid Watch, will use the latest underwater monitoring
techniques to check whether cold water pouring south from melting Arctic ice
sheets is diverting the current's warm waters away from Britain.
Without the Gulf Stream, the UK would be as cold as Canada in winter. Ports
could freeze over and snowstorms and blizzards would paralyse the country. An
extreme version of this meteorological mayhem provided the film The Day After
Tomorrow with its plotline.
'The Day After Tomorrow suggested the Gulf Stream could fail within a couple of
days,' said Rapid Watch's co-ordinator, Meric Srokosz of the Southampton
Oceanographic Centre. 'In reality, a ...