The potential collapse of a key Atlantic ocean current − due to human-caused climate change − is in the news again.
You’d be hard-pressed to come up with a scarier scenario than what’s going on now with the “Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC),” the fickle Atlantic ocean current whose weakening and eventual collapse could change the climate and weather for hundreds of millions of people.
A pair of new scientific studies detail the present and potential future of the AMOC, which was the ocean current at the center of the fictional (and scientifically inaccurate) “Day After Tomorrow” climate change disaster movie in 2004.
In one study released April 8, scientists at the University of Miami determined that over the past 20 years, the AMOC has already been weakening at four different locations in the Atlantic. In the other study, released April 16, a separate group of European scientists said the AMOC will weaken by 50% by 2100, potentially eventually leading to its “collapse.”
A weakening AMOC means the Atlantic Ocean’s climate‑regulating currents slow down over a period of a few decades, while a collapse means the entire current system crosses a tipping point and mostly shuts down − triggering abrupt, potentially irreversible global climate disruptions.
Studies – https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx4298
Compulsory “If you’ve been paying attention we have known about this and every other catastrophic event since at least the 1970’s. We aren’t listening to the right people.”
Millions if not billions of people are going to be severely at risk and even die. The vast majority of these people will be brown or black. The majority of these people will be children.
We as a species should be ashamed putting the well being of a small few over the majority.
The optimism is we will science our way out of this. Humanity is like a monkeys paw.
So I guess what I’m saying is on the individual level everyone open their eyes don’t be a dick and leave the world better than you came into it. Beyond that, sit back and enjoy the show no one really knows what they’re doing but the majority of us are doing our best.
Maybe a little doomer view.
I wanna point that we did listenen the right people after 1970’s and we pretty much fixed the ozone hole and mitigated acidic rains. Shame we have decited to stop it for some reason.
Also ironically to your statement AMOC effects most the northern europe and there is problem with small birthrate so in this particular catasrophe most people suffering will be white and children will be minority.
Edit; small edit to make the text harder to misunderstand.