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.
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.
I've been telling this to people for two decades: climate denialism exists to provide a "get out of liability free" card for the folks who'd otherwise be stuck paying climate reparations
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.
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).
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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