I recall an SF short story from the 1930s: A huge chain of volcanic eruptions causes Panama and Costa Rica and some other Central American countries to sink beneath the waves. It takes a while for people to realize this means the Gulf Stream is now flowing straight through into the Pacific, and Europe, without the warmth the GS provides, is going to get colder. (One scientist asks an audience: “Which is further north: New York or London?” One person guesses NY, which is slightly colder; and the scientist points out that, in fact, NY is on roughly the same latitude as Rome, and London would be – will be – glacier-bound without the warming effect of the Gulf Stream.) This leads West European countries to the brink of war with the U.S. as they demand the U.S. drop all its immigration barriers. The crisis is averted when one bureaucrat figures out they can restore the Gulf Stream by building a huge wall along the submerged mountainous spine of Central America. (Which means henceforth the U.S. has Europe by the nads, since the Yanks could also demolish that wall at any time.)
It has contemporary relevance because some “global warming” scenarios predict the GS will be disrupted at the other end, in the North Atlantic – so global warming might actually involve Europe (if nowhere else) getting colder . . .
Dammit, I’ve read this one, but I can’t recall the title or author. But I think it’s later than the 1930s – 1940s, maybe.
I do recall that plate tectonics isn’t in the story. It speaks “the whole Ring of Fire going up at the same time”, referring to the Pacific Rim of plate boundaries.
I haven’t been able to find it on the 'net. A lot of people have apparently been playing with the idea of changing the Gulf Stream of late, but they’re much too recent.
Here’s one I was unaware of, but it’s evidently not the one you have in mind, either:
No, because as I recall, it deals with the international situation without mentioning the Nazis. There does not appear to be any war active or looming in Europe at the time of the story.
I do remember where I read the story: It was in one of Del Rey’s paperback “Best of” collections of Golden Age SF writers – The Best of Henry Kuttner, The Best of L. Sprague de Camp, etc. I just can’t remember the author.
i remember reading it in a short-story collection, too – although i haven’t the foggiest if it was a “Best Of” a specific author or a general time period.
while there was no mention of Nazis, i distinctly remember a scene where a pilot (military i believe) flying over the Panama Isthmus actually witnessed the sinking of the land mass. (i thought the cause was supposed to be a massive earthquake.) i somehow got the feel that the ostensible time period was more like in the 50s or so. but it’s been a dozen or more years since i’ve read it, so don’t make me swear to anything.
Sounds right. Stanley G. Weinbaum 's was the first of that Ballantine/Del rey series “The Best of …” that has sadly fallen out of print (except for “The Best of Lester Del Rey”, which I bought new just a couple of years ago:
It appears to have also appeared in Amazing Science Fiction Anthology: The War Years 1936-1945, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and in The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum
