The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is a major tipping element in the climate system and a future collapse would have severe impacts on the climate in the North Atlantic region. In recent years weakening in circulation has been reported, but assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), based on the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) model simulations suggest that a full collapse is unlikely within the 21st century. Tipping to an undesired state in the climate is, however, a growing concern with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Predictions based on observations rely on detecting early-warning signals, primarily an increase in variance (loss of resilience) and increased autocorrelation (critical slowing down), which have recently been reported for the AMOC. Here we provide statistical significance and data-driven estimators for the time of tipping. We estimate a collapse of the AMOC to occur around mid-century under the current scenario of future emissions. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is a major tipping element in the climate system. Here, data-driven estimators for the time of tipping predict a potential AMOC collapse mid-century under the current emission scenario.
What are the effects for other parts of the world like Asia and North America? I read somewhere that northern US states will become the most tolerable in the US, and Florida (if it doesn’t drown first) and a lot of the south are gonna be uninhabitable.
I can’t find much that describes the modeled impacts outside of the English-speaking world, but that’s probably because I’m googling in English. What I can find suggests that in N. America sea level will rise, hurricanes will intensify, and precipitation will increase. In the British Isles, Africa, S. America, and India precipitation will decrease dramatically. Beyond those immediate, more straightforward impacts from the movement and distribution of moisture/water vapor, it’s difficult to predict what’ll happen because third and fourth order impacts are difficult to model due to inherent volatility and unpredictable sensitivity to large-scale changes.