The collapse of a critical Atlantic current can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event, a study has concluded, making deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions even more urgent to avoid the catastrophic impact.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system. It brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.
Climate models recently indicated that a collapse before 2100 was unlikely but the new analysis examined models that were run for longer, to 2300 and 2500. These show the tipping point that makes an Amoc shutdown inevitable is likely to be passed within a few decades, but that the collapse itself may not happen until 50 to 100 years later.
The research found that if carbon emissions continued to rise, 70% of the model runs led to collapse, while an intermediate level of emissions resulted in collapse in 37% of the models. Even in the case of low future emissions, an Amoc shutdown happened in 25% of the models.
Scientists have warned previously that Amoc collapse must be avoided “at all costs”. It would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50cm to already rising sea levels.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/28/collapse-critical-atlantic-current-amoc-no-longer-low-likelihood-study
Posted by Naurgul
17 comments
Its always so nice to know that ro get anything done in this world you just need to find how it hurts rich white people. Really the only way to make anyone react it seems
But did the scientists ever consider the shareholders?
Someone tell Thunberg about China and her Yacht maybe then she can help the planet
What they aren’t saying is that it’ll probably mean extremely hot summers in the countries along the South Atlantic.
Where I live, summers already average 30 °C, and the Arctic return of the AMOC keeps ocean temperatures cooler here in Northeastern Brazil… so yeah, fuck us all.
Hope I’m not alive to see it.
They really need to start publishing the cost, to make people pay attention. Maybe a “necessary tax increase”, even better.
It might be also worth pointing out apart from the CO2 bogey man. [That the earth’s poles are over due for a reversal](https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/earth-magnetic-field)
I’ve been fighting against climate change all through my adult life, and at this point I’m just hoping that I can run out the clock on my natural lifespan before hellworld, because I just don’t have much faith left in humanity.
Then maybe someone should finally shutdown Nestlé and the other assholes
This should be the most important, most talked about, most shared topic. Instead, we’re all more concerned (I’m guilty as well) about the daily whining of some syphilis rattled Russian asset. Good god, we’re fucking stupid.
Just accept that we will only be making slow but steady progress towards net zero. At this point even a catastrophic climate event probably won’t change policy.
Just have fun while it lasts, we should still be lucky enough to be the final generation to have a great time.
95% of scientists agree with whoever is funding them. Everything is political now, so it’s really hard to take anything anyone says at face value anymore.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with the message, I do find that it is being used to drum up hysteria and further ideas and solutions that would otherwise have been very hard to justify to the population in general, such as:
* you need to stop eating meat and start eating bugs, because protein comes from meat and animals fart too much
* you need to reduce your travel, because your 0.000000031% of lifetime carbon emissions compared to a celebrity or a millionaire are too much for the planet
* oil is bad, but plastics, pharmaceuticals, infrastructure, energy, transportation, fabrics etc. come from from oil as well but we prefer to pretend that’s not the case
* more taxes on emissions, the proceeds from which do nothing to help reduce those emissions.
* etc.
As in, means to create new or monopolize existing markets, or exert more control – all in the name of “saving the planet”. Also see “but think about the children” and the recent online age verification trend.
All the while disagreement or non compliance is ostracized, and treated as if refusing to donate to an obviously fake charity in support of “X” is being fundamentally against “X” and not the scam itself, or something.
Bah!
Whatever.
We apparently were never going to take climate change seriously until it became serious.
Well, this sounds like things getting serious.
It’s about time.
And it’s also too late.
Stupid is as stupid does and this is grade A stupid right here. Hopefully we get ourselves in order before even worse happens. Probably not though. Seems like to me that feedback mechanisms may have kicked in already and we’ve already lost our ability to influence the future.
Ah well.
Nothing lasts forever right?
:-/
Unfortunately our rich feudal lords have decided that in the interest of their short term profits the habitability of the Earth will just have to be sacrificed.
We have the tech to stop global warming in it’s tracks, short term, probably within 3-5 years. A bandaid until we finish actually getting our shit together the rest of the way and halt GHG emissions (and maybe even start recapturing a bunch).
It’s not even expensive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_cloud_brightening?useskin=vector
The fact that not one government is pushing to make it happen proves that this issue is not one of technology or science but that we have a completely broken culture.
Scientists for decades: Please, it’s getting worse, if we don’t do something our planet will become inhabitable to us!
Countries and companies: Yeah but my profit though
I hate every single one of them, hope they choke on their greed.
Why would the effect be sudden?
If AMOC is weakening, won’t these seasons get more and more extreme?
An AMOC collapse just means those extreme weather conditions won’t get any more extreme (ignoring other second order effects).
Or is the reality somewhere in the middle? Either way, I would expect us to see the impacts of a weakening AMOC this century, not next.
–The profits from ignoring climate change have been, and will continue to be, overwhelmingly “earned” by those who have the power to *do* something about climate change.
–The costs of ignoring climate change have been, and will continue to be, overwhelmingly borne by those who *do not* have the power to do something about climate change.
The interplay of these two dynamics is why nothing meaningful has been, or ever will be, done about climate change.
Comments are closed.