One of Earth’s most vital ocean currents is rapidly weakening in response to global warming. Its collapse could have devastating repercussions on the planet’s climate system.
The potential consequences of stopping this flow, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, are vast. The AMOC moves warm surface waters from the tropics northward toward Europe, carrying an enormous amount of heat.
If this transport stops, scientists say, the world could see more extreme cold and heat in Europe, warming in the Southern Hemisphere, stronger storms in the North Atlantic, increasing drought in Africa’s Sahel and reduced summer precipitation in Europe with potentially devastating consequences for agriculture.
Researchers have been sounding the alarm about AMOC for decades; its hypothetical stop was even the disastrous premise of the 2004 film The day after tomorrow. But scientific predictions of his fate to have been all over the map – and only in the last two years have scientists been able to understand in which direction the current is actually moving.
The consensus is not good. AMOC is weakening.
The issues are alarming enough that some scientists are even proposing to restore the AMOC to health by geoengineering. One idea: build a series of dams approximately 80 kilometers long to close the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska. Cut off water flowing into the AMOC from the strait could help stabilize the strength of the currentthe researchers report on April 24 in Scientific advances.
