Re:Warning of forthcoming collapse of Atlantic meridional ov...
by dredmorbius on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @07:50PM
(#36871309)
For comparison, the El Niño / La Niña cycle, a/k/a the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) drives patterns of drought and excessive precipitation and severe storm activity across the Pacific basin, including Australia, Japan, and North & South America, with effects being felt into the Gulf of Mexico and by some accounts, Europe. Those result from shifts in sea-surface temperatures of about 0.5 °C / 1 °F.
AMOC is part of a tremendous thermal-energy circulation system from the tropics to the arctic within the Atlantic Ocean, and tying to global ocean circulation patterns. Specific impacts are difficult to identify, but could well be hotter tropics (and likely: stronger and more frequent hurricanes and extreme storms), colder North Atlantic (including a loss of the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream on Northern European climates, hence potentially far colder and more severe winters). There are also likely impacts on marine life, agriculture, general wildlife patterns (plant and animal), amongst others. Regional sea-level rise is another possible impact (through thermal expansion if I understand correctly).
Effectively: a predictable and beneficial pattern to which human and nonhuman life and existence has evolved over many thousands of years, if not longer, may be on the verge of complete disruption. That's an event without precedent for on the order of 10,000 years (since the end of the last major glaciation period).
AMOC is part of a tremendous thermal-energy circulation system from the tropics to the arctic within the Atlantic Ocean, and tying to global ocean circulation patterns. Specific impacts are difficult to identify, but could well be hotter tropics (and likely: stronger and more frequent hurricanes and extreme storms), colder North Atlantic (including a loss of the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream on Northern European climates, hence potentially far colder and more severe winters). There are also likely impacts on marine life, agriculture, general wildlife patterns (plant and animal), amongst others. Regional sea-level rise is another possible impact (through thermal expansion if I understand correctly).
Effectively: a predictable and beneficial pattern to which human and nonhuman life and existence has evolved over many thousands of years, if not longer, may be on the verge of complete disruption. That's an event without precedent for on the order of 10,000 years (since the end of the last major glaciation period).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o>
More on prospective impacts of an AMOC collapse:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin...>
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1181-8>
<http://phys.org/news/2016-01-greenland-ice-sheet-affect-glob...>