‘We don’t know where the tipping point is’: climate expert on potential collapse of Atlantic circulation
‘We don’t know where the tipping point is’: climate expert on potential collapse of Atlantic circulation
Oceanographer Stefan Rahmstorf explains why Amoc breakdown could be catastrophic for both humans and marine life
The dangers of a collapse of the main Atlantic Ocean circulation, known as Amoc, have been “greatly underestimated” and would have devastating and irreversible impacts, according to an open letter released at the weekend by 44 experts from 15 countries. One of the signatories, Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer and climatologist who heads the Earth system analysis department at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, explains here why he has recently upgraded his risk assessment of an Amoc breakdown as a result of global heating – and what that means for Britain, Europe and the wider world.
I used to think it'd be our kids or grandkids who would find out, but its looking like it might actually be us. What a time to be alive.
The tipping point is going to come 5-10y before the mainstream op-eds that shrilly decry "Why did no one warn us it would be this bad!?" while simultaneously blaming leftist voters, consumers and immigrants for not taking it upon themselves to magic up a solution.
At this point climate scientists are like the boy who cried wolf except there’s a huge fucking wolf that everyone can see but nobody wants to admit to in case they are asked to pay to find a solution.
May, they'll say it's the lasers, just like the hurricanes. They'll pretend it was intentional to create a bigger threat from "the others" that require them to all give up their rights in order to fight.
NGL it's kind of refreshing when a scientist says "We don't know."
Looks like we will find out. Then we will find out how bad it is. Then we will wish we had listened to the scientists.
I hope some other species can survive and don't have to suffer by our hands anymore.
Horrible what we do to this planet, other living beings and ourselves.
Are you sure we didn't pass some of those already?
I think it's quite clear that we did.
A brief overview by Stefan Rahmstorf.
Good stuff throughout the whole thing to understand what the AMOC is and how its slowdown or collapse could affect things, but two crucial points he makes is that IPCC models assume a stable AMOC in their projections since it's still a big unknown, which is obviously a problem, and that he says in this video most likely the tipping point for a full collapse was past early in the century (not sure if he means earlier in the last hundred years or early in the 20th century, but probably doesn't matter).
Are middle class American 2000s babies going to suffer?
(Gut feel is 2050 is gonna be ruff)
The risk of an AMOC shutdown - explained in 15 minutes at the Arctic Circle in Reykjavik on Saturday.
German climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf presented the letter by 44 experts warning of that underestimated risk to the Icelandic climate minister Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson.
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