You know how the Gulf Stream (AMOC, for the climate nerd set) keeps Europe habitable? The latest tipping points paper is making the rounds for good reason. AMOC collapses past 2100 in *all* projections iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... Good @economist.com take www.economist.com/leaders/2025...
![Figure 1. (upper) Ensemble means of the AMOC strength and (below) total ocean heat transport at 26°N in the model simulations in which the northern AMOC shuts down. The letters are ordered from top to bottom to correspond to lines with decreasing values in year 2300/2500. The short cyan line shows the observed (yet insignificant) trend of the RAPID observations [21, 22] for 2005–2023 (upper) and 2005–2020 [23] (below).](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:3nekuksdc3y37mr7q66aaq4d/bafkreief3gzrwyhemgj77br3xekpalcft76trwmbh5cjpcopibwtpcdlry@jpeg)
the gift link on that economist article has expired and the Wayback Machine is not my friend today — any chance of a new link?
www.economist.com/leaders/2025...
thank you!
Oh Gernot, you have way too many climate scientists following you to say that AMOC = Gulf Stream for climate nerds. I pity your notifications, but i want you to know that you deserve it .
Mea culpa, climate nerds! Meanwhile, "Gulf Stream ⊂ AMOC" ⊻ "AMOC ⊂ Gulf Stream"?
Yeah so many problems. For a counterfactual try Kuroshio and Alaska.
nicely put. we need definitely more of those symbols to keep our posts short and to the point. Note to @bsky.app : put them into the emojis! (although they are quite literally the opposite - do we need an extra set of logijis?)
No. Seriously. After doing a of collapse for my PhD, I absolutely think *** this is the least of our worries *** For future climate change. Distraction from actual Insane amounts of rain Heat waves Storm surges Wind storms Heat heat heat Fires
You're not in Europe. I know America doesn't escape effects completely, but this can be a wake up call to Europeans.
No I am not - if I were I could anticipate that winters would be perhaps a bit cooler in Scandinavia. And the literal no change vs PI, zero line striking along the Baltic Sea As it is, I will be dreaming of 2016– one of the last years in nyc w sizable winter snow. My tall tale for my grandchildren
NYC will see snow. It won't be every year for a while.
Ah.
Stephen Hawking was right. Humanity is doomed due to greed and stupidity. Trump is the poster boy.
Small correction. Not all models collapse. Even under ssp585 about 25% do not. Under a more moderate ssp245 scenario around 30% of giss runs fullfil the 2100 threshold. In the giss-e run that actually runs to 2300 only 20% (2/10) collapse . Most model runs end in 2100
The image linked above is all the failed models that collapse. So 9/9 collapsed would be what is to be expected :) Most models under moderate scenarios rely on giss models,.which are the only ones that ran into 2300 scenarios
Nerd here. The Gulf Stream is not AMOC, but only a component of AMOC. The Gulf Stream is only a surface current, whereas the AMOC includes deep ocean circulation that extends the entire length of the Atlantic Ocean (inter-hemispheric). The collapse of which would affect more than just Europe.
Even more nerdy here. AMOC is a component of the Gulf Stream. More precisely, the upper branch of the buoyancy-driven AMOC is one part of the Gulf Stream. The rest of the Gulf Stream is wind-driven and will continue to flow even if AMOC "collapses" www.nature.com/articles/428...
That interactive on ‘temperatures if amoc collapses’, is that including a continuation of the wind driven part of the gulf stream (I guess so)? Many seem to hope and believe the gulf stream will continue to sufficiently warm europe without an amoc. bsky.app/profile/hako...
A good reason not to conflate the two. The collapse of AMOC will drive food insecurity globally. It's far more than just Europe having to put more blankets on their beds.
Perfect title. Up there with "Why do Bedouins wear black robes in hot deserts?"
I’ve always wondered about that, so I dug up the 1980 paper. Awesome—thanks!
Weird thought: AMOC collapse will destroy industrial civilization, which will end the emissions that caused AMOC collapse in the first place. Which is consistent Lovelock's notion that the planetary ecosystem is self-correcting.
I will never 'simplify' AMOC to read Gulf Stream. I will never 'simplify' AMOC to read Gulf Stream. I will never 'simplify' AMOC to read Gulf Stream. bsky.app/profile/sara...
Don’t worry even the nerds don’t seem to agree here: “The AMOC is a component of the Gulf Stream” and “The Gulf Stream is a component of the AMOC” 🤯
;) I'm with Carl Wunsch on this one.
Great job, everyone
The Gulf stream is mostly a wind driven current, which isn't going anywhere, though it does get some thermohaline components. It is a fallacy that it "keeps Europe habitable." Even the latest extreme hosing experiment (which assumed complete shutdown
even under a moderat RCP4.5 emission scenario) did not change summer temperatures much, though it did lead to episodic winter extremes. But the authors of that study emphasized that it's a sea ice effect, and models differ a lot on sea ice response. I'm much more worried about a steady predictable
increase in heat stress, and an inexorable approach to the fatal 40C wet bulb temperature limit (no tipping points needed!) than I am about AMOC shutdown.
Most of the reason for Europe's comparatively mild climate is just that it is downstream of the buffering effect of the Atlantic ocean, the thermal inertia of which evens out seasonal extremes. This point was made years ago by Richard Seager and David Battisti. It's not to say AMOC is
inconsequential, but the atmosphere itself is pretty darn good at transporting heat, and to some extent compensates for changes in ocean heat transport. AMOC can have a big effect in winter, if it can allow more sea ice to form, which is largely what happened in the Younger Dryas.
Thanks for the explainer! I do rather like this Carl Wunsch title: "Gulf Stream safe if wind blows and Earth turns" www.nature.com/articles/428...