The dangers of a collapse of the main Atlantic Ocean circulation, known as Amoc, have been “greatly underestimated” and would have devastating and irreversible impacts, according to an open letter released at the weekend by 44 experts from 15 countries. One of the signatories, Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer and climatologist who heads the Earth system analysis department at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, explains here why he has recently upgraded his risk assessment of an Amoc breakdown as a result of global heating – and what that means for Britain, Europe and the wider world.
A brief overview by Stefan Rahmstorf.
Good stuff throughout the whole thing to understand what the AMOC is and how its slowdown or collapse could affect things, but two crucial points he makes is that IPCC models assume a stable AMOC in their projections since it’s still a big unknown, which is obviously a problem, and that he says in this video most likely the tipping point for a full collapse was past early in the century (not sure if he means earlier in the last hundred years or early in the 20th century, but probably doesn’t matter).
Are middle class American 2000s babies going to suffer?
(Gut feel is 2050 is gonna be ruff)
Last I heard 2035 was already going to be pretty crap, 2050 was unlivable.
Saw another article that puts the 10th percentile of AMOC collapse around 2037, and 90th percentile around 2062, both from these same scientists.
I think we’ll be lucky to make it to 2040, personally.
Dang it
Thank you