If the Gulf Stream were to collapse, the consequences would be dire and far-reaching. Photo: NASA
According to an alarming new study, the Gulf Stream could collapse as early as 2025. That would be bad, to say the least.
The Gulf Stream — the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC to researchers — is one of the most important currents in the ocean. It is one of the primary drivers of the climate of the East Coast of the United States and Northwest Europe. It’s a warm and fast-moving current that begins in the Gulf of Mexico and makes its way through the Straits of Florida before heading east towards Europe, where it becomes the North Atlantic Current.
The Gulf Stream is already significantly weaker than it normally is. The Guardian reported that it is “at its weakest in 1,600 years, owing to global heating. Researchers spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021.” With that in mind, researchers conducted an analysis to find out just how bad things are. After looking into it, they estimated that it could entirely collapse between 2025 and 2095, with a central estimate of 2050. That’s if we don’t do something about our out-of-control carbon emissions. During the ice ages, the Gulf Stream collapsed, and scientists believe it led to a 10C change in temperatures in the following decades.
Although it’s impossible to know for sure whether the predictions are 100 percent correct, it is a certainty that, if the Gulf Stream were to cease or drastically change, the global implications would be pretty catastrophic.
“A collapse of Amoc would have disastrous consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa,” the BBC wrote. “It would increase storms and drop temperatures in Europe, and lead to a rising sea level on the eastern coast of North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets.”
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) fingerprint, sea surface temperature (SST) and global mean (GM). Image: Nature Communications
As I said, this wouldn’t be the first time the Gulf Stream has shut down. Between 115,000 and 12,000 years ago, there was a series of Amoc collapses and restarts. The climate was in flux then, but modern man wasn’t around to experience it.
“I think we should be very worried,” said Professor Peter Ditlevsen, at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, who led the new study. “This would be a very, very large change. The Amoc has not been shut off for 12,000 years.”
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications. In order to figure out what, exactly, is happening, researchers used sea surface temperature data stretching back to 1870 to discern the change in the Gulf Stream’s strength over the years.
The potential of the Gulf Stream’s collapse is a bit of a touchy subject between researchers, but all of them agree that if it were to happen, the consequences would be disastrous and on a global scale.
“The results of the new study sound alarming,” said Professor Niklas Boers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, “but if the uncertainties in the heavily oversimplified model [of the tipping point] and in the underlying [sea temperature] data are included, then it becomes clear that these uncertainties are too large to make any reliable estimate of the time of tipping.”
