This is not good. In fact, it is double-plus extremely un-good. Those clever Chinese climate hoaxsters have done some remarkable work here. From CNN:
Using exceptionally complex and expensive computing systems, scientists found a new way to detect an early warning signal for the collapse of these currents, according to the study published Friday in the journal Science Advances. And as the planet warms, there are already indications it is heading in this direction. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (the AMOC) — of which the Gulf Stream is part — works like a giant global conveyor belt, taking warm water from the tropics toward the far North Atlantic, where the water cools, becomes saltier and sinks deep into the ocean, before spreading southward. The currents carry heat and nutrients to different areas of the globe and play a vital role in keeping the climate of large parts of the Northern Hemisphere relatively mild. For decades, scientists have been sounding the alarm on the circulation’s stability as climate change warms the ocean and melts ice, disrupting the balance of heat and salt that determines the currents’ strength.
The last time this happened in full, about 12,000 years ago, the results were catastrophic.
For decades, scientists have been sounding the alarm on the circulation’s stability as climate change warms the ocean and melts ice, disrupting the balance of heat and salt that determines the currents’ strength...While many scientists believe the AMOC will slow under climate change, and could even grind to a halt, there remains huge uncertainty over when and how fast this could happen. The AMOC has only been monitored continuously since 2004...
Some parts of Europe might see temperatures plunge by up to 30 degrees Celsius over a century, the study finds, leading to a completely different climate over the course of just a decade or two. “No realistic adaptation measures can deal with such rapid temperature changes,” the study authors write. Countries in the Southern Hemisphere, on the other hand, could see increased warming, while the Amazon’s wet and dry seasons could flip, causing serious disruption to the ecosystem.
The AMOC’s collapse could also cause sea levels to surge by around 1 meter (3.3 feet), van Westen said. Stefan Rahmstorf, a physical oceanographer at Potsdam University in Germany, who was not involved with the study, said it was “a major advance in AMOC stability science...It confirms that the AMOC has a tipping point beyond which it breaks down if the Northern Atlantic Ocean is diluted with freshwater,” he told CNN.
The countries along the coastline will be dramatically affected. But that's OK, because hardly anyone lives in those places. From Inside Climate News:
Without warm water flowing toward the Arctic, he added, winter sea ice could expand as far south as England, and some regions of Europe would quickly dry out and cool by as much as 1.5 degrees Celsius per decade. Some of the projected impacts would be nearly impossible to adapt to, said Peter Ditlevsen, an ice and climate researcher with the University of Copenhagen Niels Bohr Institute and the author of a 2023 paper in Nature Communications that warned of a mid-century AMOC tipping point. “A lot of discussion is, how should agriculture prepare for this,” he said. But a collapse of the heat-transporting circulation is a going-out-of-business scenario for European agriculture, he added. “You cannot adapt to this. There’s some studies of what happens to agriculture in Great Britain, and it becomes like trying to grow potatoes in Northern Norway.”
"Potatoes In Norway" is a nifty title for a disaster movie, or simply for a disaster. The sea doesn't care who wins our little debates.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.
