Well, one good thing about this Atlantic current collapsing…..It will reset everything.
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World / Climate
Critical Atlantic Ocean current system is showing early signs of collapse, prompting warning from scientists
By Laura Paddison, CNN
5 minute read
Published 2:00 PM EST, Fri February 9, 2024
Waves in the North Atlantic Ocean near Gatklettur, Iceland, March 2020.
Waves in the North Atlantic Ocean near Gatklettur, Iceland, March 2020. Daniele Orsi/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
CNN
—
A crucial system of ocean currents may already be on course to collapse, according to a new report, with alarming implications for sea level rise and global weather — leading temperatures to plunge dramatically in some regions and rise in others.
Using exceptionally complex and expensive computing systems, scientists found a new way to detect an early warning signal for the collapse of these currents, according to the study published Friday in the journal Science Advances. And as the planet warms, there are already indications it is heading in this direction.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (the AMOC) — of which the Gulf Stream is part — works like a giant global conveyor belt, taking warm water from the tropics toward the far North Atlantic, where the water cools, becomes saltier and sinks deep into the ocean, before spreading southward.
The currents carry heat and nutrients to different areas of the globe and play a vital role in keeping the climate of large parts of the Northern Hemisphere relatively mild.
For decades, scientists have been sounding the alarm on the circulation’s stability as climate change warms the ocean and melts ice, disrupting the balance of heat and salt that determines the currents’ strength.
While many scientists believe the AMOC will slow under climate change, and could even grind to a halt, there remains huge uncertainty over when and how fast this could happen. The AMOC has only been monitored continuously since 2004.
A scientist holds a piece of the ice core extracted from West Antarctica showing air bubbles.
Scientists discover an alarming change in Antarctica’s past that could spell devastating future sea level rise
Scientists do know — from building a picture of the past using things like ice cores and ocean sediments — the AMOC shut down more than 12,000 years ago following rapid glacier melt.
Now they are scrambling to work out if it could happen again.
This new study provides an “important breakthrough,” said René van Westen, a marine and atmospheric researcher at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and study co-author.
The scientists used a supercomputer to run complex climate models over a period of three months, simulating a gradual increase of freshwater to the AMOC — representing ice melt as well as rainfall and river runoff, which can dilute the ocean’s salinity and weaken the currents.
As they slowly increased the freshwater in the model, they saw the AMOC gradually weaken until it abruptly collapsed. It’s the first time a collapse has been detectable using these complex models, representing “bad news for the climate system and humanity,” the report says.
What the study doesn’t do, however, is give timeframes for a potential collapse. More research is needed, van Westen told CNN, including models which also mimic climate change impacts, such as increasing levels of planet-heating pollution, which this study did not.
“But we can at least say that we are heading in the direction of the tipping point under climate change,” van Westen said.
Scientists just set a nuclear fusion record in a step toward unleashing the limitless, clean energy source
The impacts of the AMOC’s collapse could be catastrophic. Some parts of Europe might see temperatures plunge by up to 30 degrees Celsius over a century, the study finds, leading to a completely different climate over the course of just a decade or two.
“No realistic adaptation measures can deal with such rapid temperature changes,” the study authors write.
Countries in the Southern Hemisphere, on the other hand, could see increased warming, while the Amazon’s wet and dry seasons could flip, causing serious disruption to the ecosystem.
The AMOC’s collapse could also cause sea levels to surge by around 1 meter (3.3 feet), van Westen said.
Stefan Rahmstorf, a physical oceanographer at Potsdam University in Germany, who was not involved with the study, said it was “a major advance in AMOC stability science.”
“It confirms that the AMOC has a tipping point beyond which it breaks down if the Northern Atlantic Ocean is diluted with freshwater,” he told CNN.
Previous studies finding the AMOC’s tipping point used much simpler models, he said, giving hope to some scientists that it might not be found under more complex models.
This study crushes those hopes, Rahmstorf said.
Critical Atlantic Ocean current system is showing early signs of collapse, prompting warning from scientists
By Laura Paddison, CNN
5 minute read
Published 2:00 PM EST, Fri February 9, 2024
Waves in the North Atlantic Ocean near Gatklettur, Iceland, March 2020.
Waves in the North Atlantic Ocean near Gatklettur, Iceland, March 2020. Daniele Orsi/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
CNN
—
A crucial system of ocean currents may already be on course to collapse, according to a new report, with alarming implications for sea level rise and global weather — leading temperatures to plunge dramatically in some regions and rise in others.
Using exceptionally complex and expensive computing systems, scientists found a new way to detect an early warning signal for the collapse of these currents, according to the study published Friday in the journal Science Advances. And as the planet warms, there are already indications it is heading in this direction.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (the AMOC) — of which the Gulf Stream is part — works like a giant global conveyor belt, taking warm water from the tropics toward the far North Atlantic, where the water cools, becomes saltier and sinks deep into the ocean, before spreading southward.
The currents carry heat and nutrients to different areas of the globe and play a vital role in keeping the climate of large parts of the Northern Hemisphere relatively mild.
For decades, scientists have been sounding the alarm on the circulation’s stability as climate change warms the ocean and melts ice, disrupting the balance of heat and salt that determines the currents’ strength.
While many scientists believe the AMOC will slow under climate change, and could even grind to a halt, there remains huge uncertainty over when and how fast this could happen. The AMOC has only been monitored continuously since 2004.
A scientist holds a piece of the ice core extracted from West Antarctica showing air bubbles.
Scientists discover an alarming change in Antarctica’s past that could spell devastating future sea level rise
Scientists do know — from building a picture of the past using things like ice cores and ocean sediments — the AMOC shut down more than 12,000 years ago following rapid glacier melt.
Now they are scrambling to work out if it could happen again.
This new study provides an “important breakthrough,” said René van Westen, a marine and atmospheric researcher at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and study co-author.
The scientists used a supercomputer to run complex climate models over a period of three months, simulating a gradual increase of freshwater to the AMOC — representing ice melt as well as rainfall and river runoff, which can dilute the ocean’s salinity and weaken the currents.
As they slowly increased the freshwater in the model, they saw the AMOC gradually weaken until it abruptly collapsed. It’s the first time a collapse has been detectable using these complex models, representing “bad news for the climate system and humanity,” the report says.
What the study doesn’t do, however, is give timeframes for a potential collapse. More research is needed, van Westen told CNN, including models which also mimic climate change impacts, such as increasing levels of planet-heating pollution, which this study did not.
“But we can at least say that we are heading in the direction of the tipping point under climate change,” van Westen said.
Scientists just set a nuclear fusion record in a step toward unleashing the limitless, clean energy source
The impacts of the AMOC’s collapse could be catastrophic. Some parts of Europe might see temperatures plunge by up to 30 degrees Celsius over a century, the study finds, leading to a completely different climate over the course of just a decade or two.
“No realistic adaptation measures can deal with such rapid temperature changes,” the study authors write.
Countries in the Southern Hemisphere, on the other hand, could see increased warming, while the Amazon’s wet and dry seasons could flip, causing serious disruption to the ecosystem.
The AMOC’s collapse could also cause sea levels to surge by around 1 meter (3.3 feet), van Westen said.
Stefan Rahmstorf, a physical oceanographer at Potsdam University in Germany, who was not involved with the study, said it was “a major advance in AMOC stability science.”
“It confirms that the AMOC has a tipping point beyond which it breaks down if the Northern Atlantic Ocean is diluted with freshwater,” he told CNN.
Previous studies finding the AMOC’s tipping point used much simpler models, he said, giving hope to some scientists that it might not be found under more complex models.
This study crushes those hopes, Rahmstorf said.
Oh, just a reminder on what could happen if the whole current oscillation collapse. Now I don’t know is it going to be this extreme but it will be problems.
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 Americanscience fiction disaster film[2] conceived, co-written, directed, co-produced by Roland Emmerich, based on the 1999 book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, and starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward, Emmy Rossum, and Ian Holm. The film depicts catastrophic climatic effects following the disruption of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation, in which a series of extreme weather events usher in climate changeand lead to a new ice age.[3][4]
en.m.wikipedia.org
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 Americanscience fiction disaster film[2] conceived, co-written, directed, co-produced by Roland Emmerich, based on the 1999 book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, and starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward, Emmy Rossum, and Ian Holm. The film depicts catastrophic climatic effects following the disruption of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation, in which a series of extreme weather events usher in climate changeand lead to a new ice age.[3][4]
The Day After Tomorrow - Wikipedia
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I hear what you saying, If the scientist are correct about the oscillation, crashing and everything turning into ice ball, then a good, 80 to 90% of life on earth will disappear in a heartbeat, but then again earth has to protect itself
yeah i feel for coastal cities.......
those ocean front homes will be part of atlantis......
I know a lot of this stuff didn’t supposed to happen until 2060 or 2070
Bump
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