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> As long as the winds blow and the Earth spins, we will have a Gulf Stream

I don't think this is true. Didn't the Gulf Stream shut off during the Ice Ages? At least that's what I learned at college in the early 90s

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The Gulf Stream doesn't shut down. The AMOC shuts off or decreases in intensity. This is thought to have led to a number of interesting climate blips since coming out of the last ice-age. i.e. melt water from North American land sheets flows into North Atlantic, making it less dense, and less likely to sink. This leads to a lessening in the AMOC. The Gulf Stream would have still flowed but perhaps not as intense nor have been "pulled" as far northward. One such event was 8200 years ago [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2-kiloyear_event

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