For generations, the mild and temperate climate of north-western Europe has been credited to one legendary force: the Gulf Stream. This idea is so deeply entrenched in our cultural identity that in James Joyce’s Ulysses, the protagonist Stephen Dedalus refuses to take a bath, arguing that “all Ireland is washed by the Gulf Stream”.
However, the Gulf Stream is just one part of a much more complex system called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC.
