Winters could be a lot longer and colder, according to some scientists, who indirectly point toward Key West.
It has to do with a mighty current known as Florida's Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is part of a “conveyor belt” of waters that travel from the Indian and South Pacific oceans into the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.
The Gulf Stream is borne in a slender passage between Key West and Cuba and travels northeast, ushering some 90 trillion tons of water an hour and carrying 27,000 times the total output of all the power stations in Britain, according to a 1930 Popular Mechanics report and a more recent article in the United Kingdom's Independent newspaper.
Typically, the Gulf Stream transports warmth to North America and western Europe.
If this current were to stall or stop moving, the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute suspects, it could bring about an ice age – or a “little ice age,” as some say could have happened during Revolutionary War-era winters.
Well before the Revolutionary War, before continents shifted and Panama formed a land bridge uniting North and South America, waters between the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean flowed freely. With Panama to block the flow after the Americas collided, a Florida Museum researcher suggests, water was forced northeast, allowing glaciers to form.
It was during a glacial period, archaeologists say, that seas receded and the former reefs and shoals that are the Florida Keys emerged. They gently curve around the Gulf Stream.
As glaciers to the north melt and seas deepen, they become colder, Woods Hole suggests, and conditions become more ripe for the Gulf Stream to stall.
That was the premise behind the 2004 movie, “The Day After Tomorrow.”
About Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys
Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys takes readers back in time as they travel off the beaten path from the edge of Florida's mainland to Key West. In Key West, readers can embark upon a series of historic walking tours, each centered around themes such as treasure hunting, commercial fishing, literary luminaries and, of course, two of the best known residents of all -- Ernest Hemingway and Jimmy Buffett. Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys is available in print through Destinworld Publishing and Amazon.com. It's expected to be in digital format by January.
Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys takes readers back in time as they travel off the beaten path from the edge of Florida's mainland to Key West. In Key West, readers can embark upon a series of historic walking tours, each centered around themes such as treasure hunting, commercial fishing, literary luminaries and, of course, two of the best known residents of all -- Ernest Hemingway and Jimmy Buffett. Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys is available in print through Destinworld Publishing and Amazon.com. It's expected to be in digital format by January.
