Climate Science: Mysterious 'cold blob' in the Atlantic is a sign of the Gulf Stream weakening

As a scientist (now retired) it's maddening to see that news outlets rarely report science findings, especially those that are relevant to our rapidly changing climate. Unfortunately, the current state of the country doesn't believe in science, sadly. But there are those of us who DO, and a recent finding appears to be a harbinger of change for a large area of the Northern Hemisphere and Atlantic Ocean. Here's the story.

(Image: Aqua satellite image of the North Atlantic Ocean on June 10, 2026. Credit: NASA) 

Mysterious 'cold blob' in the Atlantic is a sign of the Gulf Stream weakening — and that's bad news for the US East Coast 

The Atlantic's enigmatic "cold blob" has once again been linked to a weakening of key ocean currents and a devastating climate tipping point.

Patrick Pester, Live Science, June 10, 2026

A mysterious "cold blob" in the Atlantic Ocean is a sign that key ocean currents are weakening, a new study has found, with potentially devastating long-term impacts on our climate and weather.

The cold blob, or North Atlantic Warming Hole, is an area south of Greenland and Iceland where average sea surface temperatures have actually been going down. Researchers have been working to understand the blob for years, given that it bucks the global trend of Earth getting warmer.

The new research, published May 28 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, supports previous interpretations that the blob's existence points to a weakening of ocean currents known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

The AMOC maintains Europe's relatively mild temperatures, particularly in winter, and helps regulate climate across Europe, Africa and America. Researchers have warned that a weakening AMOC has serious environmental consequences, with its collapse considered a major potential tipping point, or key threshold within Earth's systems, beyond which substantial and irreversible environmental change will occur.

WHAT IT MEANS -  Scientists are uncertain about the rate at which the AMOC is weakening, with one recent study projecting that it will slow down by around 50% by 2100. If the AMOC were to collapse completely, temperatures in parts of the Northern Hemisphere could plummet by some 18 to 27 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 15 degrees Celsius), extreme droughts would be unleashed in southern Europe, and the sea level would rise along the northeastern coastline of North America.

"Given the well-established existence of a tipping point of the AMOC, as well as recent studies finding a range of different "early warning signals" of the ocean circulation approaching such a tipping point, the strong evidence for a weakening AMOC is a serious concern for society and policy," the authors of the new study wrote in the study.

The AMOC acts like a conveyor belt, carrying water, nutrients, and absorbed carbon dioxide from the tropics northward. This warm water heats up the atmosphere, with westerly winds then carrying the resulting warm air towards land, keeping Europe relatively mild.

"Our analysis supports the interpretation of the observed "cold blob" as a sign of a weakening AMOC," the authors wrote.

There are still uncertainties surrounding the cold blob and the weakening AMOC, with work ongoing to better understand these phenomena. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is set to remove 900 deep-sea monitoring instruments from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which include sensors that would have kept tabs on the AMOC.