The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is a major tipping element in the climate system and a future collapse would have severe impacts on the climate in the North Atlantic region. In recent years weakening in circulation has been reported, but assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), based on the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) model simulations suggest that a full collapse is unlikely within the 21st century. Tipping to an undesired state in the climate is, however, a growing concern with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Predictions based on observations rely on detecting early-warning signals, primarily an increase in variance (loss of resilience) and increased autocorrelation (critical slowing down), which have recently been reported for the AMOC. Here we provide statistical significance and data-driven estimators for the time of tipping. We estimate a collapse of the AMOC to occur around mid-century under the current scenario of future emissions. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is a major tipping element in the climate system. Here, data-driven estimators for the time of tipping predict a potential AMOC collapse mid-century under the current emission scenario.

  • Blackbeard@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Not good, y’all. Most of northern Europe is generally temperate because of warm equatorial air delivered via the gulf stream (NYC is roughly the same latitude as Rome), and this shutdown won’t seem real until it enters a dramatic and irreversible phase shift, perhaps over the course of a year or two. Suddenly most of Europe will get very cold, VERY quickly, and the entire world will feel environmental, financial and cultural shockwaves for decades.

    • virr@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      9 degree drop would be disruptive and happen in less than a century.

      Even if the modem needs more validation we should not wait to act.

    • hglman@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Cold Europe means warm somewhere else. Likely it means more extremes. Heat will flow equator to pole; if it’s not via the AMOC, it will be another process.

    • scytale@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What are the effects for other parts of the world like Asia and North America? I read somewhere that northern US states will become the most tolerable in the US, and Florida (if it doesn’t drown first) and a lot of the south are gonna be uninhabitable.

    • Syl@jlai.lu
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      1 year ago

      Bonpote, french website related to climate change, mentioned that collapse of AMOC would only reduce the speed of gulf stream by 20%, so it shouldn’t be the apocalypse we are thinking about.

    • BadAdvice@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Eh. Let em go. They’ve built for the cold. It’s the heat that really gets to them apparently. Everyone likes to forget that the world is still technically in an ice age lmao people crying about the amazon love to gloss over the fact that it’s likely man-made agriculture gone completely unchecked for centuries. If we did it once, we can certainly do it again.

  • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    A lot of people know that this current keeps Europe substantially warmer than it otherwise would be. But this warm, moist air, also contributes substantially to rainfall in Europe. If the current collapses, severe drought may become the norm for much of Europe, which will have a huge impact on regional and global food production.

    And of course, it will impact many other areas substantially as well. Some predictions show substantial reductions in precipitation in West Africa and India, which would also be devastating.

  • A_A@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    … at wikipedia :

    The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is part of a global thermohaline circulation in the oceans and is the zonally integrated component of surface and deep currents in the Atlantic Ocean. It is characterized by a northward flow of warm, salty water in the upper layers of the Atlantic, and a southward flow of colder, deep waters. These “limbs” are linked by regions of overturning in the Nordic and Labrador Seas and the Southern Ocean, although the extent of overturning in the Labrador Sea is disputed.[1][2] The AMOC is an important component of the Earth’s climate system, and is a result of both atmospheric and thermohaline drivers.

    AMOC