Amid contemporary scenarios of potential climatic catastrophes and global warming that might be imagined to bring a new ice age, the powerful image of the Gulf Stream rising from the Florida Straits and flowing to the north Atlantic inevitably provokes questions about its ecological significance and whether it might ever stop.

Answering these questions demands the sober presentation, given here, of the remarkable scientific fact that even dramatic climatic change would not bring an end to the Gulf Stream.

Combining complex scientific information with an emerging narrative, this volume paints an elaborate but accessible portrait of this extraordinary natual phenomenon, tracing its historical discovery and the paradigms of its exploration, outlining its causes and dynamics, and examining its profound importance for the marine ecosystems of the Atlantic Ocean.

This series, managed by UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), not only presents the scientific aspects of the themes in question but also the issues as debated by society at large. Science is therefore set within the wider context of economics, politics and society.