Will Europe freeze as the Atlantic Gulf Stream changes?

[Sam]

According to some studies, global warming will change the course of the
Atlantic Gulf Stream, sometimes called the North Atlantic Conveyor
Belt. This current begins as a warm stream in the Gulf of Mexico and
goes through the straits of Florida, crossing the Atlantic to bring
warm water to the Arctic. As the waters become colder and more saline
in the Arctic, they become more heavy and sink, and a vast undersea
river of cold water flows back towards the Gulf of Mexico.

Scientists predict that global warming will disrupt this process. Just
like elsewhere around the world, icebergs, glaciers and icecaps in the
Arctic are melting due to global warming. But, as water from melting
ice reduces the salinity of the Arctic waters, it will stop the current
from sinking, thus breaking the circuit. This may cause the entire
current to divert or stop flowing altogether.

That could mean the freezing of Europe within a few decades. The
currents now give Europe its temporate climate. Without the current,
Europe's climate would be similar to Alaska. North-western Europe would
plunge into a colder climate than the "Little Ice Age" of Elizabethan
times, which saw crops fail and the River Thames freeze.

[Sam]

Just a note on the effect that the melting ice in the Arctic could have
on the "conveyor belt" of warm water. In 1994, Peter Wadhams of
Britain's Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University
already used computer modelting showing that this was sending a current
of cold water into the path of the warm water stream that could
potentially block and shut down or divert the warm water stream. This
warning has now apparently been supported by field research.