Findings of a new study have pointed towards a new ice related problem. Published this week in Nature Climate Change, the study has showed that retreating sea ice has a great potential to disrupt a major ocean circulation pattern and even affect climate patterns in Europe.

Researchers have said that a very important role is being played by sea ice in the Greenland and Iceland seas to ensure that powerful ocean current known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation works properly. This current serves the purpose of a conveyor belt to allow warm water to travel from equator to the poles and then shut cold water back to the tropics where the cycle starts all over again.

The transfer of heat from the water to the air is known as ocean convection, a process in which warm water gets involved after arriving in the North. The water becomes to cool down after heat moves out of the seawater and into the atmosphere.

Density of cold water is more than warm water, so it goes toward the bottom of the ocean and joins the "return" leg of the Atlantic overturning circulation conveyor belt, which carries it southward again. Researchers call this whole process overturning, which involves water to reach northward, cool down, sink and ultimately return south.

Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of physics of the oceans at the University of Potsdam in Germany, said, "I think [the authors] have done a good job based on data about the heat flux to first of all show there is a trend in this heat flux and secondly look at the oceanic consequences, especially for convection, an integral part of deep water renewal and large scale overturning,"