An anonymous reader shared this report from The Associated Press.
A sudden cessation of Atlantic currents that could plunge large parts of Europe into polar ice is more likely than before, as a new complex computer simulation finds a “cliff-like” tipping point is imminent in the future. It's looking a little more likely and getting closer.The long-worried nightmare scenario caused by the melting of Greenland's ice sheet due to global warming is at least decades, if not more, away, but perhaps centuries as it once was. It may not have been that long, a new study announced Friday. scientific progress find.
The study is the first of its kind to use complex simulations, include multiple components, and use key measurements to track the strength of the critical ocean-wide circulation, which is slowing. The collapse of the ocean currents, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), will change weather around the world because it means one of the key components of Earth's climate and ocean power will cease. The phenomenon has caused temperatures in northwestern Europe to drop by as much as 9 to 27 degrees Celsius (5 to 15 degrees Celsius) over several decades, expanding Arctic ice further south, making the Southern Hemisphere even hotter, and contributing to global warming. It will change rainfall patterns and disrupt the Amazon River. the study said. Other scientists said this would be a catastrophe that could cause global food and water shortages.
“We are getting closer[to collapse]but we don't know how close,” said study lead author René van Westen, a climate scientist and oceanographer at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “We're headed for a tipping point.'' When this global weather disaster, horribly fictionalized in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow,'' will occur is “a million-dollar question, but unfortunately, right now That's not an answer,” Van Westen said. He said it's probably a century away, but it could happen in his lifetime. He just turned 30.
“It also depends on the rate of climate change that we as humans are causing,” Van Westen said.