According to a new study, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major Atlantic Ocean current, could shut down at some point in this century, leading to dire consequences for the world’s climate.
The AMOC moves warm water in a shallow current from the tropics to the North Atlantic, where the water cools, sinks, and circulates back to the tropics via the deep ocean. The Gulf Stream is part of this current, and the overall effect is the cooling of tropical regions and the tempering of the cold in Western Europe and Scandinavia.
A collapse of this circulation could massively alter climate on a global scale. Previous shutdowns of the AMOC — which have not happened since the last Ice Age, 12,000 years ago — led to 10–15°C shifts in climate over a decade (as measured in Greenland ice cores). That’s a significant shift, considering that our global temperature has increased <1.5°C since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
It’s likely that Western Europe’s climate would become colder, similar to northern Canada and Alaska, with...
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