The North Atlantic’s Gulf Stream affects the overlying atmosphere more strongly than previously suspected. Surface waters of the 100-kilometer-wide current (white, with Florida bottom left) can be significantly warmer than those nearby, says Shoshiro Minobe, a climate scientist at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.
High-resolution satellite images reveal that the atmosphere over the Gulf Stream hosts thunderstorms and stronger convection more often than the surrounding ocean, Minobe’s team reports in the March 13 Nature.