Collapse of Critical Atlantic Current Is No Longer Low-Likelihood, Study Finds 138
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: 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. The new results are "quite shocking, because I used to say that the chance of Amoc collapsing as a result of global warming was less than 10%," said Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who was part of the study team. "Now even in a low-emission scenario, sticking to the Paris agreement, it looks like it may be more like 25%. "These numbers are not very certain, but we are talking about a matter of risk assessment where even a 10% chance of an Amoc collapse would be far too high," added Rahmstorf. "We found that the tipping point where the shutdown becomes inevitable is probably in the next 10 to 20 years or so. That is quite a shocking finding as well and why we have to act really fast in cutting down emissions."
"Observations in the deep [far North Atlantic] already show a downward trend over the past five to 10 years, consistent with the models' projections," said Prof Sybren Drijfhout, at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, who was also part of the team. "Even in some intermediate and low-emission scenarios, the Amoc slows drastically by 2100 and completely shuts off thereafter. That shows the shutdown risk is more serious than many people realize."
The findings have been published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
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. The new results are "quite shocking, because I used to say that the chance of Amoc collapsing as a result of global warming was less than 10%," said Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who was part of the study team. "Now even in a low-emission scenario, sticking to the Paris agreement, it looks like it may be more like 25%. "These numbers are not very certain, but we are talking about a matter of risk assessment where even a 10% chance of an Amoc collapse would be far too high," added Rahmstorf. "We found that the tipping point where the shutdown becomes inevitable is probably in the next 10 to 20 years or so. That is quite a shocking finding as well and why we have to act really fast in cutting down emissions."
"Observations in the deep [far North Atlantic] already show a downward trend over the past five to 10 years, consistent with the models' projections," said Prof Sybren Drijfhout, at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, who was also part of the team. "Even in some intermediate and low-emission scenarios, the Amoc slows drastically by 2100 and completely shuts off thereafter. That shows the shutdown risk is more serious than many people realize."
The findings have been published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
What this means... (Score:4, Interesting)
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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 climate models aren't accurate at those time scales.
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Where did you live where growing soybeans isn't a safe bet?
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Re:What this means... (Score:4, Funny)
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Are you a LLM? There are ways to train you against hallucinations.
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Are there really?
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Only funny comment? And not so much.
Oh well, the story had little promise for humor. I noticed a few comments about extreme weather, but we're already at that point. Yesterday's top news story here was the heat wave. Again without precedent, but the local records only go back about 170 years before becoming fuzzy.
On the bigger topic of human survival, I don't think we have to go extinct, but that's where we're headed. Yeah, human hardware is old, but the brain part is general purpose and can run all sorts o
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Yes, indeed we were. And not only were our ancestors hunter-gatherers, they were omnivores. In fact, they gradually evolved so that they had to eat meat regularly or suffer from vitamin deficiencies. And that leads directly to an unpleasant fact that vegans would rather not talk about: if they want to live on a strict vegan diet and remain healthy, they need to take daily supplements to provide the vit
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Acknowledged, but if I diverged wide, then I feel you diverged narrow.
Should I have been explicit about the effects of climate change? I actually don't think it's the kind of extinction-level threat my comment may have implied, so badly expressed on my part. As regards the vegans, you mostly reminded me of some anthropological book about the meat topic, but I can't recall the title or author just now.
Re: What this means... (Score:2)
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That's what I thought- that it had not been rainforest in the last 780,000 years or so
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How old are you? North Dakota hasn't had temperate rainforests in the last million years or so. Or as Gemini states:
No, North Dakota does not have temperate rainforests, which are characterized by high rainfall, high humidity, and dense vegetation like mosses and ferns, often found on the Pacific coast or in mountainous regions. Instead, North Dakota's dominant forest type is deciduous, with a few patches of specialized forests like those in Gunlogson State Nature Preserve, which features bur oak and bass
Re:What this means... (Score:5, Interesting)
We've heard this "climate models are bad at predictions" stuff for years, yet it turned out it is plain wrong and the models are pretty accurate.
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Which is a surprise only for the ignorant.
Re:What this means... (Score:4, Interesting)
Here in America during the last election we saw a phenomenon called sane washing where no matter how crazy Donald Trump was the media just covered for him. I saw legitimate news outlets saying positive things about Trump's meltdown at the Town Hall where he couldn't answer questions anymore and just started dancing to his iPod.
With that level of control I don't know what you do about much of anything.
We need to get sane people back in charge of civilization but I don't know how you do that when you can get 47% of the country to freak out about 14 trans girls playing field hockey in America. We have a substantial number of people terrified about the 0.5% chance that their son might be trans and not the 20 years of drought the country has been in...
I know better education and better early nutrition can help fix that but we can't even get to that point right now because we have these absolute lunatics in charge of everything and again 47% of the country wants it that way.
I know and understand all the human tendencies that are being exploited to get us to this point but again I have no idea what to do about them.
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The media did what? Covered who?
"Drugs are bad, M'Kay?"
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Re:What this means... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Holy Trinity of climate denial:
1. It's not happening.
2. Even if it's happening, the problems are exaggerated.
3. Even if the problems are bad, there's nothing we can do about it. (You're here)
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Yep. I fell into level 3 in 2004 when the melting tundra ice started releasing methane in an amount that far dwarfs man-made CO2 emissions over the last 2000 years or so.
And we've now been in that positive feedback loop for 21 years (the warmer it gets, the more methane ice in the tundra melts, which worsens the carbon load of the atmosphere, which causes more global warming).
And there is NOTHING you can do to "stop global warming" at all, except maybe adjust to it by buying a bigger air conditioner for yo
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Many simulations have been run to try to understand what would happen if we stop emitting CO2. They do show a continued warming trend for a period afterwards. However, the warming does eventually come to a stop. That final temperature is what you usually hear in media reports.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that we should explore all possibilities to bring it to a stop even more quickly. Atmospheric aerosol injections can very quickly end warming, though it does not mitigate all other effects of higher CO2.
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I'm all for replacing coal with nuclear, deep water siphons, tidal generators, wind, solar, and ground loop air conditioning.
All the better if it's done for the right reasons- and in a way that takes advantage of the ambient energy of the earth, rather than fossil fuels.
I just don't think you're going to stop global warming that way- at all. We've done too much damage, and it's out of our hands now.
There are sound distributist economic reasons for switching to ambient energy, not the least of which is that
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection [wikipedia.org] SAI certainly does have more promise than most I've seen. Thank you for the link..
Re:What this means... (Score:5, Informative)
No, it doesn't mean anything of the sort. Almost everywhere is getting warmer, the poles especially. If the AMOC stops there will be a region in northern Europe that gets colder, but that's an exception, not the rule. Almost everywhere will still end up warmer than it is today.
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What this means is our children are screwed. Our collective greed and irresponsibility have fucked our future. That's what this really means.
Business as usual. Professor Bartlett was dead on accurate ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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That extrapolation is incorrect, probably because like most people, you might not realize how far north Europe actually is. The only reason it is warm is because of the gulfstream current raising the temperature of the north Atlantic. The destruction of this current is why their temperature would go down while the average temperature of the planet goes up.
Most of Europe is at the same latitude as Canada. Scotland would fall entirely within Alaska's latitudes. Paris is further north than Canada's border with
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Since 1959, the average CO2 airborne fraction has been 0.43, but it has shown an increase of approximately 0.2% per year over that period.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_fraction [wikipedia.org]
[3] - "Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks". [nih.gov]
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If this was true, shouldn't the airborne CO2 percentage now be .9976? Or nearly 1%?
Re:What this means... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're really trying to claim that modern engineering doesn't concern itself with things where the difference in magnitude is on the order of 10,000 or more?
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Even non-modern metallurgy cared about fractions of that magnitude.
Re:What this means... (Score:5, Insightful)
You must ask yourself a different question here: what fraction of the trapped energy is due to the CO2.
The answer is that that fraction isn't very well aligned with its weight fraction.
http://www.hyperphysics.phy-as... [gsu.edu]
I'm sorry for your lack of education.
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Re:What this means... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What this means... (Score:4, Insightful)
The air CO2 fraction is 0.0004. To any climate denier, that is zero. You can double it and it is still zero. The only way these catastrophic climate models can depend so heavily on a zero, is if there are very big fudge factors hidden in it.
Climate denier science illiteracy is irrelevant.
Re:What this means... (Score:4, Informative)
A 0.0003 carbon fraction turns iron into a very different material.
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The air CO2 fraction is 0.0004. To any engineer, that is zero.
Then I guess it's a good thing that climate change is studied by scientists instead of engineers.
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Remember in chemistry class where they taught you about "significant figures"? Probably it was in the same lesson as "scientific notation". May want to go back and study that part some more.
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To any engineer, that is zero.
WHOLY FUCK PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM ENGINEERING. A great many things we do deal with tolerances significantly smaller than that. If you don't understand numbers please don't comment, just read other comments here and learn something in silence.
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The air CO2 fraction is 0.0004. To any engineer, that is zero.
No. It literally isn't. To any engineer, nothing but zero is zero.
You're a fucking idiot.
Reminded of this famous movie quote (Score:2)
Arnie being Arnie.
Get your ass to Mars. [youtu.be]
In other words (Score:2)
Amoc will no longer be able to run amok.
the real problem: it is a global climate bifurcati (Score:5, Interesting)
So the scary bit about the AMOC collapse isnt just that it is a big climate shift, it is that it is a bifurcation problem. You do not just dial it down and then dial it back up later. Once you cross the freshwater threshold and the overturning circulation stalls, the system snaps into a new stable state. That is how nonlinear dynamics works: the stability basin changes, and you do not just reverse it by undoing the last couple gigatons of ice melt. To turn it back on, you have to reset the whole system, which for the AMOC means millennia of rebalancing salinity and temperature gradients.
And that is why people keep stressing tipping points. We are running a giant uncontrolled experiment where the worst case outcome is not just warmer summers but irreversible restructuring of the global climate engine. The models already show hysteresis: collapse is way easier than recovery.
So if it goes, it stays gone.
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What does that affect where crops are grown, and food is grown?
It's not likely to change much.
I grew up on a farm and rotating crops is pretty standard practice in any modern farm. That means having the skills, equipment, and whatever else to grow at least three different crops. Because machines wear out there's also a rotation of sorts on the skills and equipment. Should the climate shift then that likely just means as equipment wears out the farmers will shift their rotation of crops to adjust.
I expect people to scream and shout that the climate will change too qu
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It's not likely to change much.
It already is.
Re:the real problem: it is a global climate bifurc (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not by a fucking long shot.
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Wonder if the UK government is also paying farmers not to farm too, since that also tends to speak volumes as to sunshine needs and food.
No, it's related to the UK being relatively small and people wanting more wildlife as opposed to huge fields containing nothing but wheat and the presumption that imports can cover the difference, but not wanting to just drive farmers entirely out of business as they are good managers of semi-wild spaces.
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Lived in England for several years growing up. I could count the number of sunny days during the summer months on one hand.
I've lived in the UK all my life. My response is: bollocks.
Re: the real problem: it is a global climate bifur (Score:2)
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It's a tipping-point.
The reduction in population carrying capacity of a good part of Europe will be interesting to see play out.
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Yup. Once it's gone, it's gone.
No, that's not true.
It takes thousands of years to reestablish. Did you not even read the summary?
Historical evidence tells us it's gone away and come back at least once
No, history does not tell us this as it has not happened in the timescale of human history, defined as extant records. Human existence, yes, history, no.
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It takes thousands of years to reestablish. Did you not even read the summary?
Thousands of years is a long time but that's not forever.
I don't much care about the fearmongering on global warming any more so I'm not bothering to check but as I recall if the Atlantic ocean currents are to stop then it would take centuries. Once that happens it would take thousands of years for a temperature difference to build large enough to restart the process. If the concern is that those alive today would not live long enough to see the Atlantic currents restored, effectively meaning they are gon
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It takes thousands of years to reestablish. Did you not even read the summary?
Thousands of years is a long time but that's not forever.
Whilst technically true, just a few thousand years ago we lived in caves. It's not very relevant.
I don't much care about the fearmongering on global warming
Ah, the denialism returns.
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Those that are impacted will see some inconveniences, perhaps worse like a flood destroys their residence. They collect insurance, the government buys their land, or whatever, then they move, and maybe the government builds a dike, or condemns the land from any future development, and we move on.
Well, at least in the US, the insurers are refusing to pay, fleeing the coasts, and not likely to be the backstop. The government doesn't have two nickels to rub together, FEMA is gutted, response is absent and likely never coming. And the government is not interested in helping anybody that isn't already affluent.
Yes, your larger point is true. We will move on. But the path behind won't be cleaned up. Not by a long shot. A lot of wrecked futures are inevitable.
A century will pass in about a hundred years n
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No, that's not true. Historical evidence tells us it's gone away and come back at least once. I didn't look into the history further but the fine article tells us that it was gone and returned before.
lol.
I did not mean forever- I meant "as would be relevant to us".
However, the only known AMOC collapses were caused by massive freshwater injections into the oceans.
This one will not be caused by that, it will be caused by a loss of gradient required for convection.
You cannot thus model what will happen this time by what happened the known times. It's a different scenario. And frankly, far worse.
The ocean readily gets rid of fresh water.
Readily getting rid of heat is another matter entirely.
I tha
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Readily getting rid of heat is another matter entirely.
If we are to believe the IPCC on global warming then I'd expect people to believe them that nuclear fission as a means to reduce that global warming. So long as people don't believe the IPCC on the solution then that creates an opening to ignore the problem.
Pick your poison everyone, you want global warming or nuclear fission? If you believe that there's another option then offer it up. So far the alternative offered is to sit in the dark while hungry and cold. If you believe otherwise then ask Germany
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And I thank you for your ignorance also.
My ignorance in what precisely.
You demonstrated a clear lack of understanding on a topic (conflating ice-sheet collapse AMOC disruptions at the end of glacial periods with its current weakening), I pointed out the lack of understanding on the topic (your ignorance), and then you said some weird unrelated shit about the IPCC and nuclear power, and called me ignorant?
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This was predicted for last half a century if not longer to happen
[citation needed]
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They're conflating a many-decade concern over the long term health of the AMOC with predictions that it was going to fail in X years.
The only thing that can be taken from this, is that the many-decade concern continues to be supported.
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I'm already awaiting the rapture.
I'll do it later (Score:4, Insightful)
I like to wait until after a catastrophe before I mutter: why didn't anyone warn us?
How to make me care about climate action: (Score:4, Insightful)
And regulate the energy gluttony of big tech. AI farms are sucking up electricity like bottomless pits, powered largely by fossil fuels, and no one’s asking them to slow down or clean up. These companies tout “sustainability reports” while building data centers that strain entire power grids.
So yeah, I’ll care when the burden isn’t shifted onto the common man while corporations and the ultra-rich keep operating above the rules.
Re:How to make me care about climate action: (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, I gave up on believing anything would be done about climate change when the mainstream financial industry started embracing bitcoin. There is nothing dumber during a climate crisis than promoting mainstream adoption of a proof of work cryptocurrency that gobbles up energy and cutting edge compute power.
In 100 years, we will look back on it like the gold rushes - people will be in awe when told how the pinnacle of our technological achievements - a massive electricity supply infrastructure and state of the art microchips - was being used to 'mine' coins. They will ask, 'why didn't they use the energy, human resources and technology to solve their climate problem?'.
Millions of people died digging a shinny gold rock out of the ground. Crypto and AI is our generation doing the same thing, and we are already seeing the same results where so much of our 'work' today is not producing anything particular useful that measurable parts of the economy, like housing supply and infrastructure are collapsing and everyone just sits around scratching their heads as to why while watching their tulip portfolios increase in value.
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I hope we"re judged harshly
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Satan's subordinates are already hard at work heating up the furnaces :)
I admire your optimism (Score:2)
The most powerful men and women on the planet are currently planning a horrifying form of techno feudalism enforced by combat drones and AI surveillance.
They're not even being shy about it. Peter thiel is Crystal clear what his plans are and you can readily find them online.
It's like the old phrase when people tell you what they are believe them. The problem is you really have to go out of your way to find that information because you'r
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Millions of people died digging a shinny gold rock out of the ground
Sorry, I must be missing your metaphor here. You can't possibly think millions of people have died mining gold.
Coal mining is much more dangerous, but even that can't reach the numbers you claim.
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make billionaires who burn through more CO2 in a single private jet trip than the average person does in a year face real consequences for it.
Congrats, you've solved 1/100,000,000th of the problem. That's typically the problem with blaming some specific subset of the species for something which needs to be addressed on a global scale. *You* are more damaging to the environment than they are based purely on your attitude alone.
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Re:How to make me care about climate action: (Score:4, Insightful)
> but billionaires are drop in the (expanding) ocean.
In terms of headcount - yes, but in terms of power and authority to do something - no.
These people can exert a greater influence on policies, and could therefore be seen as bearing a greater responsibility, no?
I'm not doing anything till the Billionaires do (Score:2)
1) The very rich often fly for work purposes. If Taylor Swift flies privately so she can squeeze in a single extra concert that could be 30 million in ticket sales. 30 million extra in economic activity. Taylor Swift concerts, over all, are a low carbon economic activity per dollar. I want to encourage that activity.
2) We reward investing, taking risks and working hard with more money. More money to consume stuff. So if someone makes 100 times the average pers
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Having listened to Swift's cover of Last Christmas, it might be economic activity but is it worthwhile any more than employing someone (with or without a jet) to break windows that someone has to fix :)
P.S. Intended as humour
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Don't forget to tax everyone and his dog for the greenhouse gases they breathe out (burp, fart).
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Your's, based on an average is free and included. You pay for your dog's as this is a luxury and not a need.
On the flip side, corporations get the equivalent of one person's free CO2 production. The rest needs to be paid.
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congrats, you fail at basic logic
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I think they fucked up the presentation, not the idea. If I understand their point, if you put all of the negative impacts of the regular masses on one side, and those of the most wasteful of rich people on the other, the rich become incidental. You can't fix the problem addressing them. You can't even really move the needle.
Do you want self righteous posturing, or do you want to really fix the problem? Of course the rich should tone it down. Absolutely. But to actually do something meaningful, you have to
So Weathernews predictions will get even worse? (Score:2)
because the climate models are not valid anymore?
From the department of the fucking obvious. (Score:2)
Its not like people havent been sounding the alarm for some time now.
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if it is really a grift (Score:2)
Yet you aren't bitching when someone gets money to drill for oil. Curious bias you have.
Re:Sounds like Armstrong. (Score:4, Informative)
It's not AMOC researchers who make up sources, darling.
It's MAGATs like the bestest economic advisor of the president trump who do.
E.g. there is a Ron Vara, who had to come up with a pen name, Navarro, so that his crazy theories about tariffs have at least two sources.
Source: https://www.chronicle.com/arti... [chronicle.com]
Confirmed: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/1... [nytimes.com]
Quoted by Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/news/20... [snopes.com]
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Hehehehe, I see a lot of butthurt in the modding.
Trumptards, why do you find it so hard to swallow the truth about your fake saints and your lying cult?
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Places poor enough to make a living shilling on slashdot are the first impacted by climate change.
You should teach your kids how to cook dogs and people, it'll give then a leg up.
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Nobody serious thought that. it was just fud meant to confuse alex jones watching retards.
But we are going to die. Good work boomers.
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Here is a handy graphic with all the sources. https://www.explainxkcd.com/wi... [explainxkcd.com] Enjoy!
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