[News] Scientists warn that a key Atlantic current could collapse, among other climate tipping points

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Venezuela lost its final glacier this year. The Greenland Ice Sheet is losing, on average, 30 million tons of ice per hour. Ice loss from the Thwaites Glacier, also known as the “Doomsday” glacier because its collapse could precipitate rapid Antarctic ice loss, may be unstoppable. 

These are just a few of the stark findings from more than 50 leading snow and ice scientists, which are detailed in a new report from the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative.

The report summarizes the state of snow and ice in 2024: In short, experts agree, it’s been a horrible year for the frozen parts of Earth, an expected result of global warming. What’s more, top cryosphere scientists are growing increasingly worried that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a key ocean current that governs how heat cycles in the Atlantic Ocean, is on a path toward collapse. 

A rapid halt to the current would cause rapid cooling in the North Atlantic, warming in the Southern Hemisphere and extreme changes in precipitation. If that happens, the new report suggests, northern Europe could cool by about 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit in a decade.

The report highlights a shift in consensus: Scientists once thought tipping points — like the collapse of AMOC — were distant or remote possibilities. Now, some of those thresholds are appearing more likely to be crossed, and with less runway to turn the situation around. 

“The latest science is not telling us that things are any different to what we knew before, necessarily, but it’s telling us with more confidence and more certainty that these things are more likely to happen,” said Helen Findlay, an author of the report and a professor and biological oceanographer at Plymouth Marine Laboratory in England. “The longer we record these things, and the longer we’re able to observe them and start to understand and monitor them, there’s more certainty in the system and we start to really understand how these tipping points are working.”

 

 

A key Atlantic current could collapse, scientists warn