The Gulf Stream strengthens
With the Pacific route closed, the North Atlantic circulation intensifies and carries more heat north.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 1.7 million years
- Known to
- ± 500 thousand years
- Era
- Pliocene, Cenozoic
The closure of Panama forces the equatorial Atlantic current to turn north rather than pass into the Pacific, increasing the volume and salinity of water feeding the Gulf Stream and strengthening the Atlantic overturning circulation. The result is a warmer, wetter northwest Europe — Britain sits at the latitude of Labrador and has a very different climate — and greater moisture delivery to high northern latitudes, which is one of the ingredients required to build an ice sheet.