2y ago

Gulf Stream current could collapse in 2025, plunging Earth into climate chaos: 'We were actually bewildered'

www.livescience.com

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...

World News @beehaw.org

darthfabulous42069 @lemm.ee

2y ago

Gulf Stream current could collapse in 2025, plunging Earth into climate chaos: 'We were actually bewildered'

www.livescience.com /planet-earth/climate-change/gulf-stream-current-could-collapse-in-2025-plunging-earth-into-climate-chaos-we-were-actually-bewildered

173 comments

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
  
  "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.
  
  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!?"
  
  It's actually kind of too late now.
  But, we may be able to prevent more bad stuff happening if we change things today!
  
  Only "they" is actually "us". We voted those clowns into office. We knew (or should have known, the information was available) better at least since the 1970s.
  
  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.
  
  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.
- Good news! Soon the doom won't be impending!
  
  https://imgur.io/gallery/IPAc1CV.gifv
- 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.
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 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.
- 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.
- Aha! So that one fringe scientists isn't sure? Then maybe nothing will happen so let's continue the course!
  World leaders mentality
- 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?
  
  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
  
  This is just demonstrably false.
  
  Genuine question: What do you understand by scientific 'prediction'?
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.
- 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.
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.
- 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
- 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.
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
  
  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.
- 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)
Goodbye Iceland my old friend.
- Why is everything so fucked and we don't have any agency in changing it
  
  Carbon tax would go a long long long way. It would just have to be more severe than any politician would be willing to go.
  We have the answers and economists and scientists know what needs to be done it's just the politicians (and people) won't allow it.
- https://cdn.masto.host/urbanistssocial/media_attachments/files/109/377/849/207/673/637/original/0012be0e30511750.png
- 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
AMOC - Atlantic meridional overturning circulation
- 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!
Title gore.
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
If anyone wants to read more about AMOC, here is a description from NASA along with the NASA illustration that was in the article:
June 5, 2023
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?
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.
insert meme of sitting inside house burning down "this is fine"
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.
  
  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.
Actually this is one of the climate issues I am not that worried about. Yea it can happen, yea there wil be problems but even in climate models with 0 sea currents , the winds will make up for most of it. It won't be a km of ice covering Europe etc.
More worried about extreme weather that happens with or without the amoc
- Nobody is claiming that there will be a literal ice age here. What part of Europe are you from where people actually think that will happen?
  Even a small change in weather patterns can have disastrous consequences across many industries and aspects of society however, and must be taken extremely seriously. Will this be an apocalypse of biblical proportions? No. Will it plunge us into various types of suffering and despair? Yus.
  
  Sure, Lots of issues. But a big probl is that the nuances of science is often missed when reporting on this issues , and gives fuel to deniers and lobbying organisations.
  Regarding the golf stream the data is very inconclusive. Direct measurements have only been going on for about 15 years and at least 30 is needed to make any tendencies known.
  15 degree cooler in winters if you dismiss the wind taking the place for heat transfers. I do agree that if we do not know exactly we should consider the worst case scenario. My problem is that the media reporting is counter effective since it report in the way it does.

173 comments