SCIENTISTS WARN: AMOC Collapse Could Be Imminent, Triggering Centuries of Global Climate Disruption

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Urgent Call from Climate Experts

Forty-four of the world’s leading climate scientists are sounding the alarm on the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a key driver of the Earth’s climate. In an open letter published on October 21, climatologist Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania and other experts are urging Nordic leaders to take immediate action to prevent what they describe as a “devastating” event with far-reaching consequences.

The letter emphasizes that the risks of a weakened AMOC have been underestimated, and that urgent steps are needed to mitigate the danger.

How the AMOC Works

The AMOC is a vast system of ocean currents that flows like a giant river across the Atlantic Ocean, transporting warm, salty water from the tropics to northern Europe. This process acts as a heat pump for the North Atlantic, helping regulate global climate patterns.

As the warm tropical waters travel northward, they cool, evaporating and warming the atmosphere along the way. The remaining cold, dense water sinks nearly three kilometers (about two miles) near Iceland, creating an enormous “underwater waterfall” that drives this global circulation. The water then flows through the ocean’s depths toward Antarctica, eventually resurfacing near South America and completing the cycle.

This system is vital to maintaining Europe’s relatively warm climate and influences weather patterns across the globe.

The AMOC’s Role in Global Climate

The AMOC is one of the planet’s largest heat-transport systems, carrying 50 times more energy than the total human energy consumption. It not only moderates Europe’s climate, but also impacts the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide, oxygen distribution, and rainfall patterns in the tropics.

However, recent studies show the AMOC is weakening. Less heat is moving from the tropics to northern regions, as evidenced by the “cold blob” in the North Atlantic—an area where temperatures have dropped over the last 20 years, even as the rest of the planet warms. This cooling is a clear signal that the AMOC’s flow is slowing, just as climate models predicted in response to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the AMOC’s strength has decreased by about 15% since the mid-20th century, making it the weakest it has been in over 1,000 years.

Approaching a Tipping point

As the AMOC slows, scientists warn that the AMOC could soon reach a tipping point due to global warming. Once crossed, this threshold may trigger an irreversible and uncontrollable decline in the system, leading to drastic climate disruptions.

Global Impacts of an AMOC Collapse

If the AMOC collapses, the effects would be catastrophic. The effects include a cooling of the northern hemisphere, particularly northwestern Europe. There would also be a shift of the tropical rainfall belt to the south, which is bad because the rains will move away from the rainforests to regions that are not used to so much rainfall. So this will mean droughts in some regions and floods in others.

AMOC collapse would also have a major impact on the northern Atlantic sea level, which would rise by half a metre or so, in addition to the rise caused by global heating. It would also reduce the CO₂ uptake of the ocean because AMOC sinking in the northern Atlantic takes a lot of CO₂ down into the deep oceans where it is safely locked away from the atmosphere.

How much time do we have left?

The scientists caution that without immediate climate action, the AMOC could collapse within the next few decades, although exact predictions are uncertain. The latest report (2023) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests “medium confidence that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation will not collapse abruptly before 2100.” However, many scientists believe this may underestimate the urgency of the situation.

There is a remote but unsettling possibility that the AMOC may have already crossed its tipping point. If so, the system could be in terminal decline, though we might not realize it for years. The tipping point itself is not marked by any dramatic events, but once crossed, the AMOC would be doomed to a slow collapse, with the full impact potentially taking 50 to 100 years to unfold.

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Published in The Bonaire Reporter issue 21, 2024 page 5