Scientists are sounding the alarm that a crucial component of the planet’s climate system is in gradual decline and could one day reach a tipping point that would radically alter global weather patterns.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is a system of ocean currents that circulate water in the Atlantic Ocean like a conveyor belt, helping to redistribute heat and regulate global and regional climates. New research, however, warns that the AMOC is weakening under a warming climate, and could potentially suffer a dangerous and abrupt collapse with worldwide consequences.
“This is bad news for the climate system and humanity,” researchers from Utrecht University’s Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research wrote in a new study published in the journal Science Advances.
Won’t somebody think about the profits?
exactly what the profits predicted
The profits always know best!
such wise profits
tipping point scenarios are very horrifying. And all the global warming deniers will probably be like “but it wasn’t because of global warming it was because this ocean current collapsed!”
We told all those fish that if they kept swimming the way they were this would happen.
Oh, don’t worry, we will ignore this too… We’re all gonna turn this planet into a living hell for ourselves, and as a species, we will completely deserve the consequences.
But not me. I want change. I want to put nature first… This sucks.
we’re going to vote/choose ourselves into pockets of extremism and then wipe each other out.
Good article; this news has been making the rounds for quite some time, but this article actually goes into more thorough detail re: what various effects we might see worldwide.
At this point, I don’t care anymore. We’re effed anyway, there is no future for us… Even when aliens landed and took over the world it wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe they’ll do a better job.
Just a note on this: Currents have broken down in the past.
Yes, and they’ve caused the extinction of the majority of multicellular species each time. The Earth’s history is not stable, we’ve had 5 cataclysmic extinction events in the past and we’re headed straight for a sixth.
That’s pretty much the point.
