We Are F%$#ed

New images are showing that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is collapsing even faster than previously thought.

We can expect to see 10°C or more of a temperature drop in Europe if this happens:

The #AMOC is the reason for Europe’s mild climate. Evidence that it is slowing has been piling up over the years – it now is likely at its weakest in at least a millennium, and it may even be approaching a tipping point. Here I will show you the latest high-resolution images – and also discuss whether there is serious evidence speaking against an ongoing AMOC weakening.

Our regular readers are well aware of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC in short, a large-scale overturning motion of water along the whole Atlantic which transports a quadrillion Watts (that is 1015 W) of heat to the northern Atlantic, partly via the Gulf Stream. (If you are new to the topic, check out this article.)

Instabilities of the AMOC have produced some of the most dramatic climate changes in recent Earth history, well-known to paleo-climatologists (see e.g. my by now ancient review in Nature 2002), and concerns that we are destabilizing it by causing global warming has been rising sharply in expert circles in recent years (see last year’s open letter by 44 experts).

One reason is what we are observing in the northern Atlantic. And another reason is the latest model simulations by the Dutch research group in Utrecht. A recent paper by van Westen et al. (2025) has shown that the much-feared tipping point where the AMOC breaks down (first demonstrated in a simple box model in 1961) is also found in a high-resolution (eddy resolving) ocean model – destroying any hope that it might be an artifact of too coarse and simple models. This tipping point has been consistently demonstrated across the entire model spectrum by now, and the cause is well-understood (a destabilizing salt transport feedback).

For those of you wondering why cooler temperatures in Europe might not be a problem, it should be noted that the heat that leaves Europe is not going away, it's just going somewhere; somewhere else that is already getting hotter.

One could expect to see significant temperature increases in the Caribbean, leading increases in hurricane strength, for example.

This is not good.