Researchers have predicted the collapse of the AMOC could happen any time between 2025 and 2095 — far sooner than previous predictions, although not all scientists are convinced.
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What if…
I’m so tired of living in a world of impending doom. This is hell.
The phrase “may you live in interesting times” is a curse.
“Despite being so common in English as to be known as the “Chinese curse”, the saying is apocryphal, and no actual Chinese source has ever been produced.” - Wikipedia
Oh is this a thing? The phrase has been on my mind lately and I’m like no, it’s a fucking curse. Thanks for the trivia!!
The whole point of that phrase is that it’s a curse.
Thanks for the info! I’ve only ever heard it said in a positive way.
“Exciting times, kiddo”
And they know how to fucking fix it but don’t want to
It’d be like if in the movie Armageddon the government just said “Eh let’s see if it really will be that bad if it hits us”
So Don’t Look Up.
That movie felt way too real watching it.
Yes but without the part where they tried
We haven’t gotten to that point yet
Without some sort of violent revolution, we won’t, or time runs out but it’s not a movie and there’s no ship to another planet.
Great. That’s exactly what we need now - more violence
Revolutions take over where reason stops. The people in power have the means to do the right thing, but sometimes they look out for a few people and will destroy thousands. That’s not a good option, as people get more desperate
If there’s ever a time when it’s justified, it’s when our very existence is at stake.
This is because you’re not sorting your recycling!
“We could do something about the asteroid, but think of the harm doing something could do to the shareholders!?”
I was going to save humanity but I have a responsibility to a handful of shareholders that yell at me in meetings so… You can really see how hard this is for me
IDK, I mean we know it’s to do with carbon but we don’t really know how to stop producing that in a timely manner.
Yes we do. Carbon tax.
Carbon is causing global warming. We know how to fix global warming because we are causing it, we just have to stop doing it.
This article is about global cooling which is bizarre and not something we expected would be happening. We haven’t got a clue why it’s doing that. It maybe natural, or it maybe it’s something we’ve done in a complicated way, but we don’t know so we don’t know how to fix it.
If this is just an ice age why may as well burn all the coal now to try and stave it off.
Although in reality I think this needs a lot more research before we do anything because this announcement makes no sense within our current understanding of the environmental science.
Umm, no. Go read it again.
Global warming shuts off the current, so the warm air doesn’t shuttle north, causing local cooling, not global
Good news! Soon the doom won’t be impending!
Have you tried being absurdly wealthy?
I haven’t myself, but I hear it makes it all worth it.
It’s on my to-do list.
I just long for a time when the conspiracy theorists are yelling about the end of the world and the scientists are running the country, not the other way around.
The doom depends on where you live. Florida? Yup, probably, but you where already living in hell. Europe? Iced up North Sea, really snowy north, big ice caps, Spain and portugal getting more cool…doesn’t sound that bad, to me personally.
What? I moved to the nordics so that I’d be living in a tropical paradise soon, now there’s going to be more snow?
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is one of the places least likely to be affected by climate change, based on current models. In the US anyway.
Mostly florida, as the “AMOC” transports the heat away from florida. Could very well be, that a stoppage of the AMOC would create a Hypercane and completely wreck everything in Florida. Cuba could also be absolutely done for. Canada would also probably have a LOT more snow - the Soutpole however would probably stop existing and what exactly is going to happen to Brazil is a complete unknown. Some simulations show the insta death of the rest of the rain forest. Some simulations actually show the opposite. However, Europe, Africa and Asia probably would see a lot lower temps - what exactly that would mean for the Climate in those areas is also highly speculative - however, it’s something that happened quite often throughout the history of earth. North America however has lots of other parts liveable, when Florida is “dead” and basically the Sahara.
Happened quite often in the past…over the course of thousands of years. Man-made global warming is a very different animal.
No, the collapse of the AMOC was pretty rapid in the past as well. And it’s separate from climate change. Man-made global warming is very complex and there are various things contributing to it.
Clearly a coincidence.
You are the first person I’ve seen recognize the legitimate fear that these climate issues could result in hypercanes.
Hurricanes of a size and fury as to not be measurable on current scale, Whose devastation could stretch across half a continent.
but other scientists are not so sure.
Is it just me who thinks we should act as if it is going to collapse soon, even if a few scientists aren’t sure?
But what if it’s all a hoax and we make the world a better place for no reason?
Won’t someone think of the shareholders?
I am never going to recover financially from this.
I mean, that is always a concern lol.
I really hate this line of thinking.
“Making the world a better place” would be an enormous sacrifice for most people. There would be massive financial ramifications. Our quality of life would decrease significantly.
You can’t eat money. Our quality of life is already decreasing because of this. How do you think people’s quality of life in Europe is going to be when the Gulfstream current shuts down and stops bringing warm tropical water to them? Reducing our exploitation of natural resources is not a sacrifice, it’s the right thing to do. What we’ve been doing is wrong.
How do you think people’s quality of life in Europe is going to be when the Gulfstream current shuts down
I think you missed the hypothetical line of thought I responded to in which this is “all a hoax”.
Aha! So that one fringe scientists isn’t sure? Then maybe nothing will happen so let’s continue the course!
World leaders mentality
I think it’s more 99.9% of the scientists think it will get proper fucked up in the 2100s, but this one report says it’ll happen in the next few years.
But we should be doing something about it anyway.
If we actually cared we’d ban everything that’s fucking the world up, and ban any imports from countries that don’t agree. But if the last 5 years or so have told us anything, it’s that a lot of people don’t care. Even about things that directly affect them.
And people who do care often feel impotent to do anything about it.
Agree that drastic measures are necessary. It doesn’t even have to mean a drop in living standards; but it will take radical changes to protect (and even raise) those standards.
Agree about imports. The problem I see is that even if products with a high carbon footprint are imported, it doesn’t mean the person responsible for that carbon footprint isn’t domestic to e.g. (going by your ‘feddit.uk’ handle) the UK. This could still be captured by an import ban (i.e. shareholders can’t just export their emissions and pretend everything is okay), but the people with the power to export their emissions tend to have a lot of power to lobby the government, sit on government decision-making panels, or even choose MPs. They’re unlikely to shoot themselves in the foot like that.
An example is laptops. They break every few years. For the past decade-or-so, they’re made to be irreparable. They become landfill, and all that embodied carbon is wasted. Today’s laptops don’t even do anything that laptops of 15 years ago couldn’t do, except deal with websites bloated with adverts. It doesn’t matter so much where that consumer item is produced. The problem is the decision to make it so that it breaks and has to be replaced. Those decisions tend to be made in the west by people who will never willingly change their ways. It’s all about profit.
I think part of the reason that people feel apathetic is that they know it’s all about profit and are convinced that a system based on profit is the only way, so there’s nothing to be done. Another way is possible, though, people just need to be organised and educated§ to achieve it.
§ I mean working-class education, not e.g. going to college/university.
I didn’t realise how bad laptops had got until I had to repair one for my uncle a few years ago.
I’d always known laptops to be pretty good. Panels underneath for access to RAM and HDD (the most common things to need replacing), and a removable battery.
This thing was glued shut. I did manage to get it open and replace the drive with an SSD, but it was clearly designed to be thrown away once anything went wrong with it. Getting it back together again meant the trackpad didn’t work reliably any more, but what can you do?
Anyway, I digress. I fear that real change means a drop in living standards for many. It’s unpalatable to the career politicians whose only real motivation to do anything is to get re-elected every 4-5 years, and maybe line their own pockets courtesy of corporate donors.
Reminds me of this article: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stopped-buying-new-laptops.html
Actions that work in the possible world in which it collapses soon are actively harmful in possible worlds in which it doesn’t. Acting as if a threat will happen only makes sense if the action isn’t significantly harmful in cases where it doesn’t, where significantly is based on the harm of not being prepared and the chance of it happening.
If the Gulf Stream will collapse by 2025, the response isn’t to be more eco-friendly. In fact, it’s the opposite. Everyone in the north should prepare to burn a lot more fuel, and concern for global warming would definitely be reduced. Global warming is something you can only afford to give a shit about when temperatures haven’t just dropped by 3.5C and you haven’t just lost 78% of your arable land (UK figures, because that’s where I live).
Do you mean that people need to see how their life will get worse before they will be willing to act? That sounds a little accelerationist to me. But I’m not entirely sure of your argument. You seem to be saying that people would not be worried if they lost 4/5ths of their arable land, but I think I must be misunderstanding something.
(I think it’s s tributary to the Gulf Stream that is at risk of collapsing, not the Gulf Stream itself, which, I’m told, is based on the earth’s rotation rather than climate.)
Well, all their predictions were wrong so far
Citation?
A scientific source. Not y’all’quida magazine…
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-new-american/
No thanks. Considering they don’t support the consensus on climate change and are a far right, anti-government, anti-immigration group. I doubt their articles on climate change are factually sound. So miss us with your bullshit.
I wouldn’t dismiss an article just because a fact check website down rates it.
In this instance, though, it’s not far off. “The famous scientists at the Newsweek lab got things wrong a few decades ago, so all scientists today must be wrong.”
They are not far right, just right. And very credible. I’ll look for another source I guess.
“And very credible.” Lol. These are opinion pieces you are linking to. Let us know when you have a scientific article (ie Science, PNAS, Nature) to support your climate denial.
I would never deny the existence of the climate.
“Just right” is no more credible than “far right.” Right-wing politics is a pack of lies and absolutely nothing else.
Ring wing news sources actually value the truth, unlike establishment and left wing news sources.
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https://www.newsweek.com/newsweek-rewind-debunking-global-cooling-252326
That’s already been addressed.
So do you have a better citation?
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Are you okay now? I had to sit down after about six paragraphs. Metaphorically, of course; I wouldn’t stand up to read a dissertation on climate denial.
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There are much newer wrong predictions as well. Point is though, that you can’t find a correct prediction.
Most predictions are generalized statements like “the world as a whole will be hotter” or “extreme weather will be more common”. I’d bet good money that you could verify both of those predictions using only your own personal experience and that of the people you know. You’re not being honest with yourself if you say the climate isn’t changing at all. If your point is that predicting the future is hard and therefore there’s no point in trying to understand what’s happening then that’s an idiotic point of view that shouldn’t require a rebuttal.
I can tell from the way you’re speaking that you have your mind made up and none of these responses will make any difference to you but they may help someone else reading them.
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No, that’s it
Not exactly a news source known for it’s unbiased and trustworthy reporting.
Even if it were credible, the article is almost 10 years old.
You need to do better than use a far-right organization’s outlet. Go to the true scientists, not reporters with a political agenda.
Reputable sources such as NASA, the United Nations, and the National Geographic Society, which base their conclusions on scientific evidence and rigorous research are much more reliable.
It is understandable to feel unhappy with the current reality. However, ignoring the situation and trying to find evidence that it is not real will not benefit anyone. In fact, it may even cause harm. As the saying goes, it is better to be safe than sorry.
It is important to face the reality and take appropriate actions to improve the situation. How else will a difference ever be made?
Edit: I named American websites (apart from the UN), because I assume by your source that you are American. This is a global issue, though. European reputable institutions:
Okay, acknowledged
Journalistic sealioning, that.
That article was the epitome of the old saying “figures don’t lie, but liars can figure”. They cherry picked studies and statistics to support the conclusion they wanted to reach, absolute garbage “science”.
Well yes we keep finding it’s getting worse quicker than anticipated
Your right, they said we had way longer before the climate would start collapsing, they should have warned us HARDER
We should have been dead by now, 20 times, according to the scientists
What is your honest opinion - do you think the climate is not warming due to increased CO2 that humans are releasing into the atmosphere?
I think yes, but there’s no accurate model on how much exactly the greenhouse gasses are affecting the average temperatures.
But if it’s non-zero, shouldn’t we be working to fix that problem regardless?
I suppose, but the urgency factor may be wildly different.
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You are on some heavy street drugs, I can tell.
Meth induced psychosis is real, please seek help.
Genuine question: What do you understand by scientific ‘prediction’?
Make a prediction model, plug in the data and release the results to the public. Prediction turns out to be wrong, rinse and repeat
That’s not far off liberal scientific methodology, to be fair, but it seems to put the cart before the horse. You might want to look up ‘falsifiability’, ‘confidence factors’, and, if you have the time and inclination, Karl Popper’s Objective Knowledge.
This won’t give you everything but it should go some way to explaining the scientific method in more detail.
The process is roughly as follows:
- Make a hypothesis that is capable of being disapproved;
- Test the hypothesis;
- Refine the hypothesis based on the findings;
- Test the hypothesis;
- And so on.
The more times the hypothesises is not disproved, the more likely it is too be correct, the more confident the prediction. According to this theory, it’s impossible to prove anything; we can only be confident that knowledge is objectively true if we have tried and failed to disprove it. This is a bit of a blunt summary.
If you don’t trust this method, I wouldn’t ever get on a plane or take any medication.
The key point being that a prediction won’t become the consensus until it has a fairly high confidence factor (i.e. lots of people have tried and failed to disprove the prediction). Climate change is one of those things. Every time someone conducts another experiment, the new data strengthens the view that global warming cannot be disapproved.
Just to put all my cards on the table, I think Popper is wrong. But he sets the scene for a lot of liberal conceptions of science. It’s his ideas that underpin many of the kinds of predictions that you’re talking about, I think. (When I say liberal, I’m referring to the main ideology of capitalism, not to the ‘left’ brand of US politics.)
That is, climate change about as ‘true’ as things can get, and so it is predicted. But even ‘prediction’ in this sense, makes it seem as if we’re taking about something in the future (I couldn’t help but challenge the Popperian model just a little bit, I’m afraid). But climate change is already here. It’s the present. The prediction only concerns how bad it’s going to get.
Thanks for this write up and the Popper reference!
You’re welcome.
Feel free to come back if you want to talk about Popper more. His work can be quite difficult to read. Some paragraphs/chapters read smoothly, then others are very technical. It might be worth having a quick look into ‘hypothetical deductive methodology’ for an overview of Popper’s main idea before tackling him directly.
It might also help to know that his theory comes from his anti-communism. So when he’s talking about the problems of prediction and historicism, he’s challenging the Marxist method (poorly, IMO, but I won’t get into why, here, unless you want to talk about it).
This is just demonstrably false.
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TL;DR: New statistical model suggests that the AMOC (including gulf stream) could collapse to the much slower pattern by 2025 to 2095. This is a century earlier than previous predictions and the researchers were concerned. There is some questions on the accuracy of the model used, and that needs more research.
Personally I don’t think we should wait for further testing to vet the model before acting. Try to do better now.
It’s kind of important whether it’s 2095 (prepare for it, set up nuclear, reduce carbon emissions) or 2025 (fuck global warming, we need fuel and we need it now, the more carbon emitted the better).
Local cooling still global warming overall.
The collapse of the current in the model is a direct result of global warming. The solution is to act like climate change is an emergency because it is.
That’s true if it’s closer to 2095. If it’s closer to 2025, there’s fuck all we can do to stop it, and so we need to do what’s best to survive it, which is not the same as what’s best to prevent it.
Scientists shouldn’t talk about the chances of not if something is sure enough. Politicians will latch onto that. Just make broad statements and go. Just like with the movie ‘Don’t look up’.
Not really - the AMOC collaps between 2025 and 2095 was already in a 2005 paper. Nothing really “new”, IMHO.
Goodbye Iceland my old friend.
Why is everything so fucked and we don’t have any agency in changing it
This is giving me an existential crisis
Maybe I don’t get it, but as far as I understand, the golf stream brings hot air to north Europe. This is why you can live on Iceland while at the same latitude on the center of Canada is unhabitable.
I’m afraid that for a place like Iceland this does not mean warm and sunny, but more extremes in weather.
The number of extreme storms are increasing :
https://www.vedur.is/um-vi/frettir/456-vidvaranir-gefnar-ut-arid-2022
Do you have anything else about the gulf stream that would be Iceland specific, I want to do graduate school there but this makes me question that
More bad news great
Well that’s pretty scary… I mean, at least the scientists say that it’s more likely the current will just slow down rather than completely collapse? But then again, all the climate change models predicted a much more conservative timeline on when we would be experiencing the effects of climate change than what is actually happening in the real world now… so idk, scary shit man ☹️
they also have admitted to only announcing the most optimistic results because nobody would believe them if they didn’t, and if people did it would be devastating
Ugh, and of course because of that people have been dragging their feet on making necessary changes to the point of doing basically nothing anyway… I feel like the risk of people saying it’s too extreme maybe would have been worth instilling a sense of panic in people over climate change? Feels panic worthy to me
We have become so politically correct that giving people upsetting thought may actually kill us all.
That was dumb of them. Enough people would believe to make make actual changes. To move earth and societies. Now what do we got? Too many people that don’t believe because they tried to make people believe. I think that all continues to be a massive mistake. Just know that most people aren’t that smart and you can convince a lot of them. Be not scary enough and those same not smart people will work against you with their emotion based reasoning.
are you joking, basically all of modern society has a vested interest in people not believing it.
If how conservative they’ve been in the past is any indication, this is going to happen next monday
Yeah, for real though considering they are saying it could happen anywhere from 2025 (wtaf) to 2095 (lol)
We could try to vote people who will take action OR incentivize consumers to be more proactive BUT. Neither is ever going to happen.
I was having dinner with my brother’s family and we were watching an interview with some celebrity that my sister-in-law adores. Dude is heavy in green activism and lists fast food places which are bad actors for climate and also farmers rights, etc. So my SiL announces we are never eating at such and such place again (I can’t remember, I never eat fast food anyway). The very next night they order takeout from said fast food place. They also always order same day deliver from Amazon despite it never actually arriving same day, but they get packages every damn day. Tons and tons of packaging for crap they always throw out or give away to neighbors eventually. This isn’t unique to them.
This is MOST of America and I suspect the rest of the developed world. We are effed.
cant elect people in america who would do anything, when we’re busy trying to fend off full blown fourth reichdom by electing the least awful candidate each election.
How rich are they to be able to afford that? Most Americans arent Tywin Lannister living in their castle getting fancy mail brought to them.
I posted this twice now.
But carbon taxes, externality corrections, cost of recycling plastic is in the cost of the product. Let the market fix it all. But no, people won’t even agree to raise taxes on fuel
Title gore.
thank you
I made a poster about this for an assignment when I was primary school, like 18 years ago. Ffs
We should have listened, but your poster was washed from the main stream media!
If anyone wants to read more about AMOC, here is a description from NASA along with the NASA illustration that was in the article:
BRIEF: As the ocean warms and land ice melts, ocean circulation — the movement of heat around the planet by currents — could be impacted. Research with NASA satellites and other data is currently underway to learn more.
Edit: climate.nasa.gov is fantastic for this kind of stuff, btw. They have tons of data from their satellites you can download, visualizations, videos, charts, graphics, tutorials…just all sorts of things. It’s very cool.
did we see this movie already?
Let’s make another one! Except this time make it a documentary!
Are you sure you aren’t just thinking of Idiocracy?
As long as we finally get colder weather and snow in Germany again, I’m all for it. No, not really because it’s horrible but I try to see the positive things.
You might like the weather but you’ll have some issues with an utterly collapsed food chain
I can remember a time when elon musk was still saying smart things… like if there’s even a 1% chance of it destroying the planet. We should do everything to avoid it.
What would this result in, if this happens?
I asked Bing chat a similar question. Here the sobering answer:
The Gulf Stream is a crucial system of ocean currents that plays a vital role in Earth’s climate. If it were to collapse, the consequences would be significant and abrupt. Some of the potential consequences include:
- Fast sea level rise in the Atlantic¹
- More extreme winters in Western Europe¹
- Disruptions to monsoon systems in the tropics¹
- Greater cooling and more powerful storms across the Northern Hemisphere¹
- Severe disruption to the rain that billions of people rely upon to grow crops in Africa, South America, and India¹
- Extreme cold to Europe and parts of North America¹
- Raised sea levels along the U.S. East Coast¹
- Endangerment of the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets¹
It is important to note that scientists are warning that the Gulf Stream could collapse at any time². The shutdown of this ocean current could lead to serious consequences globally, impacting heat and rainfall distribution². A major Atlantic current could collapse by midcentury as a result of climate change, prompting extreme cold in Europe and sea level rise along the eastern coast of the U.S., according to a study³. It is crucial that we take action to prevent this from happening.
(1) Gulf Stream: A crucial system of ocean currents is showing signs of … https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/world/climate-gulf-stream-collapse-warning-study-intl/index.html.
(2) The Gulf Stream could collapse at ‘any time’. https://www.msn.com/en-au/weather/topstories/the-gulf-stream-could-collapse-at-any-time/ss-AA1elwYA.
(3) Atlantic Ocean currents system could collapse this century from climate change: study. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4118630-atlantic-ocean-currents-system-collapse-climate-change/.
(4) The Gulf Stream Is in Danger of Collapsing as Early as 2025. https://www.theinertia.com/environment/gulf-stream-collapse-2025/.
(5) Gulf stream could collapse as early as 2025, study suggests. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/gulf-stream-could-collapse-as-early-as-2025-study-suggests.
(6) Scientists Are Warning of Gulf Stream Collapse | Futurism. https://futurism.com/collapse-ocean-currents-freeze-north-america-europe.
So nothing major right? Business as usual.
I don’t know about the former, but yes to the latter.
I don’t know about the former, but yes to the later.
Those are all the problems for places that don’t get the heat the AMOC moves. It doesn’t list the problem for the places where that heat doesn’t leave.
insert meme of sitting inside house burning down “this is fine”
