Gloomy climate calculation: Scientists predict a collapse of the Atlantic ocean current to happen mid-century
Gloomy climate calculation: Scientists predict a collapse of the Atlantic ocean current to happen mid-century
Important ocean currents that redistribute heat, cold and precipitation between the tropics and the northernmost parts of the Atlantic region will shut down around the year 2060 if current greenhouse gas emissions persist. This is the conclusion based on new calculations that contradict the latest r...
Does anybody know if such a collapse would happen instantaneous or more gradual? With the massive amount of water in motion it feels like it would take a long time to stop, or are fluids behaving differently?
When I used to run simulations, a current of the size of the Gulf Stream could be turned on (with winds and Earth's rotation), from nothing, in around 400 years (see p. 68). Then it maintained steadily. But turning off or changing in important ways can happen much faster. I'd like to know as well. There should be open-access articles in that journal about this.
My understanding (and I’m not a scientist, I just have read a lot about this), is that there are two flow states of the AMOC. There is a fast state, and a slower state (which we are in now). It seems like it could just stop, but they don’t know for certain that it will ever completely stop. It will more likely just slow to a point where it is functionally dead. The current has already started to slow, so lots of people are trying to make predictive models about just how slowly it can go or when it will “collapse”.
It's not an on / off situation. It will gradually decline until it finally stops or reaches a critical threshold where it's movement no longer significantly alters weather patterns. None of these climate change thresholds are as black and white as they are made out to be which is one of the argument tactics deniers use to argue against it. The reality is a slow decline until the affects are unrecoverable from.
There is a fast state, and a slower state (which we are in now).
I think you wrote that backwards.
Actually no. There is a much faster state than what we’re in now, but there is a lot of variability in the flow states. Since we’re approaching the point of a collapse, we’re solidly in the slow state, but not yet at the slowest point. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0007-4