A serious system of ocean currents that ferries heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic could shut down far ahead of expected, based on latest predictions. Such a collapse would prove catastrophic for Earth’s climate.
The system, often called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) had previously been measured to be dramatically weakening together with rising ocean temperatures. Despite this, nevertheless, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently announced that climate scientists don’t expect the AMOC to totally switch off inside the century.
But a brand new study is now difficult that conclusion, raising the specter of a halted AMOC to as early as 2025.
“Shutting down the AMOC can have very serious consequences for Earth’s climate, for instance, by changing how heat and precipitation are distributed globally,” study leader Peter Ditlevsen, from the Niels Bohr Institute on the University of Copenhagen, said in a statement.
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Finding that direct measurements of the AMOC’s strength have only been made for the past 15 years, Ditlevsen’s team applied sophisticated statistical tools to ocean temperature data going all the way in which back to the 1870s for an enhanced dataset. This detailed evaluation ultimately suggested significant warning signs of the AMOC shutting down between 2025 and 2095, with a staggering certainty of 95%. More specifically, the team’s results evidenced that the more than likely time for this collapse can be around 2057.
Still, other climate scientists remain cautious, saying that there are still uncertainties in the info that might affect its accuracy. Nevertheless, it’s value considering that even the mere possibility of the AMOC shutting down so soon is slightly alarming.
The AMOC, which incorporates the Gulf Stream as a part of its system, is our planet’s important mode of transporting heat away from the tropics. Without it, the tropics would rapidly increase in temperature while vital tropical rains get disrupted. Such rains are essential for the environments of South America, western Africa in addition to in India and other regions of south Asia.
Meanwhile, northern and western Europe would lose their source of warm water from the tropics, resulting in more storms and severely cold winters in these areas. The lack of the Gulf Stream particularly would also lead to rising sea levels on the US’ eastern seaboard.
“Our result underscores the importance of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible,” Ditlevsen said.
Lately, we’ve already seen the hazards of human-induced climate warming play out as heatwaves grip much of the northern hemisphere. And although the lack of the AMOC may even see northern and western Europe cool, “this shutdown will contribute to an increased warming of the tropics,” Ditlevsen said, “where rising temperatures have already given rise to difficult living conditions.”
The findings were published on Tuesday (July 25) within the journal Nature Communications.