Rapid warming could trigger Atlantic current collapse at 2°C, study finds
Rapid warming may tip AMOC at 2°C, slower warming may avert collapse
A new study warns that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a crucial ocean current system, could collapse if global warming reaches 2°C above pre-industrial levels. However, the research suggests that slower warming might give the system time to adapt, potentially averting a shutdown. The findings highlight the importance of the rate of climate change, not just the final temperature, in determining the stability of major climate systems.
The rate of warming is critical: a rapid rise to 2°C could tip the AMOC past a tipping point, while a slower approach may allow the system to adjust and avoid collapse.
- drewg123
We need to get serious about geo-engineering of some form or another. We have seen time and time again that we simply do not have the willpower to reduce climate change. So I'm becoming convinced that the only short- and medium-term solution is geoengineering to stop global warming.
- arjie
I went to Glacier National Park a while ago and stood before a sign that said "The glaciers you see will be gone by year 20xx" or something like that. The year was 20xx and I was looking right at the glaciers and they were decidedly not gone. I understand the motivation. The reality is that an action of strength A is required to create outcome X, but if one expresses this need, it's likely one achieves only an action of strength A- < A and consequently the outcome X- != X. This encourages us to say "we need an action of strength A+ or we will get the outcome X-". The hope is that the discount that people apply on the prediction results in an action of strength A' ~ A and an outcome X' ~= X.
But public exhortation is a repeated game and unless you're Heaven's Gate the success of your popularized predictions has a significant effect on the discount that the public applies to your predictions. Failed predictions have an effect on the discount rate asymmetric to the direction. It is likely that a successful public authority allows some number of people to experience catastrophe pour encourager les autres. Attempting a zero error rate by biasing to zero catastrophe is likely to cause repeated discounting until true catastrophe cannot be averted.
I'm reminded me of the short story The Wandering Earth. Spoilers to follow so don't read if you care. In the story, a group of scientists determine that the Sun is going to flare enough to kill everyone, so all of humanity mobilizes to ins […]
- podgietaru
It'll never be too late to mitigate even worse effects. Remember that the defeatism is what people who want no change want.
- gmuslera
Too bad all seems that we are heading to even faster rate of warming. It may end being something we will see by next decade.
And it won't be the only big thing that will be sensibly changing by then.
- cachius
Can't we just pour the waste water from desalination plants into the arctic abyss to keep AMOC going?
- josefritzishere
This is a tepid sort of optimism.
- wartywhoa23
I heard in 1988 that we all must be dead by now from the ozone hole.
- OroPla
Given how we are at the tail end of a small ice age, shouldn't it be expected that temperatures recover to what they were previously? I never quite understood how climate is simultaneously too complicated to understand and predict the weather accurately while also a solved problem that we just need to take action on. And somehow the action we need to take is more taxation?
Since I keep hearing about this for at least 30 years now and still nobody took action the whole thing might be a bit more complicated than what the news media would have you know.