The tropical waters thus attracted southward would be cooler than the
tropical waters of to-day, owing to the great extension of cold in the
southern latitudes. Still they would begin the slow process of raising
the temperature of the Southern Ocean, and would in time melt the ice
in all southern lands. Not only the Brazil currents would penetrate
the southern seas, as we have shown, but also the waters from the high
level of the tropical Indian Ocean which now pass down the Mozambique
Channel would reach a much higher latitude than now.
The ice-made isthmus uniting South America to the antarctic continent
would on account of its location be the last body of ice to melt from
the southern hemisphere, it being situated to windward of the tropical
currents and also in a region where the fall of snow is great; yet it
would eventually melt away, and the independent circulation of the
Southern Ocean again be established. But it would require a long time
for ice sheets to again form on southern lands, because of the lack of
icebergs to cool the southern waters. Still, their temperature would
gradually lower with the exclusion of the tropical waters, and
consequently ice would slowly gather on the antarctic lands.
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