ABSTRACT
Wallace Brodkerad and George Denton from the University of Maine have advanced one of the more interesting theories about climate changes involving ocean currents. They propose that a very salty, dense stream of water flows northward under the Gulf Stream carrying heat from the tropics. It rises to the surface in the far north as water above is swept away by harsh weather and deposits its heat to warm the arctic, cools, sinks, and returns to the tropic. This continuing process keeps the arctic free of glaciation. Disturbances to this process could lead to a new period
of glacier formation. This was thought to occur during the period of glaciation known as the Younger Dryas period, about 12,000 years ago. During this period, huge quantities of fresh water from the North American continent emptied into the North Atlantic for over 100 years.35
