A recent study by van Westen et al. (2024) has suggested that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) may be on course for an abrupt shut down. Due to the potential climatic consequences on the North Atlantic region and much of the Northern Hemisphere, an AMOC shut down has been one of the figureheads of climate change related impacts since the late 1980s (e.g. Manabe and Stouffer 1988; Vellinga and Wood 2002; 2008; Jackson et al. 2015 and many others). This new study has re-ignited the conversation about AMOC stability and the climate impacts of an AMOC shutdown and received considerable media attention. In this article, EPOC experts reflect on the scientific evidence to date.
Is the AMOC slowing and will it reach a tipping point?
Studies based on paleo observations (i.e. proxies of past ocean conditions that are stored in sea sediments) have suggested that the AMOC is at its weakest for the last millennium (e.g. Caesar et al., 2022; Thornalley et al., 2018). In contrast, contemporary AMOC estimates based on direct observations of ocean (temperature, salinity, velocities) and atmospheric (wind) conditions acquired by the Rapid- MOCHA observing system in the North Atlantic do not show any significant weakening of the AMOC during the last 20 years (Worthington et al. 2021). That period may be too short to detect a longer term weakening trend though (e.g. Jackson et al. 2022). Whether the AMOC strength is currently reducing is therefore still an open question which is being debated in the ocean and climate community (e.g. Kilbourne et al. 2022; Caesar et al. 2022).
What about a possible AMOC tipping point?
Again, paleo observations show that the AMOC is likely to have undergone rapid changes during the last ice age (Dansgaard et al. 1993; Broecker et al. 1985 and many later studies; see Loriani et al., 2023 for an overview). Evidence of abrupt changes in the past has been one of the key motivations for many later and current studies and indeed for the current AMOC observing systems. How likely is an AMOC shut down in response to global warming and what are the warning signs we should be looking out for? Whereas the paleo proxies show us that the AMOC has undergone rapid changes, numerical models are ideal tools to test likely future AMOC scenarios. It is accepted that if subjected to large enough perturbations the AMOC shuts down in the latest generation of high resolution models (e.g. Mecking et al., 2016). High resolution models also suggest that the AMOC may be bistable – i.e., after a shut down the AMOC can remains in the “off” state (i.e., severe reduction in AMOC strength) long after the fresh water perturbation has stopped (Mecking et al. 2016). Observations and high resolution ocean models suggest that presently there is a net fresh water transport out of the Atlantic ocean at 34°S (e.g. Deshayes et al., 2013; Mecking et al., 2016, van Westen et al., 2024). Van Westen et al. (2024) and to some extent an earlier study by Hawkins et al. (2011) suggest that the AMOC- driven fresh water transport at the southern boundary of the Atlantic reaches a minimum shortly before an abrupt decline in AMOC strength and van Westen et al. also identify a coincident change in temporal variability of the fresh water flux as a precursor of the AMOC change. In classical AMOC stability theory, a net fresh water transport out of the Atlantic at its southern boundary is considered an indicator of AMOC bistability. This view has been questioned by some authors though and the debate about the role of the AMOC-driven fresh water transport is not yet settled (e.g. Weijer et al., 2019; Mecking et al., 2016).
Mechanisms and feedback in the Earth climate system may cause the AMOC to shut down or to switch to a different stable state. However, it is unclear if the warming would be strong enough for the climate system to reach this tipping point. Since the 1990s the question many studies, including van Westen et al. (2024), have been trying to answer is whether the AMOC will shut down as the climate warms due to human-induced greenhouse gas emissions and the ocean receives increased fresh water input from ice sheets such as Greenland (starting with Manabe & Stouffer (1993) and many others since). Over the years the pendulum has swung from a marked AMOC decline / shut down being considered likely to this being an unlikely scenario. Currently, the prevalent view is somewhere between the two and in the latest IPCC report an AMOC collapse in the 21st Century is considered unlikely – a statement made with a medium level of confidence. If and when we could reach the point where the AMOC would switch off is therefore still an open question. There is no consensus yet in the AMOC science community and the recent study by van Westen et al. (2024) has to be viewed in this context. The study is a valuable addition to the ongoing discussion about the AMOC and its stability but in the following we summarise why it does not reduce the present uncertainty about a future AMOC shutdown.
It is not clear what the response would be if the model experiment were performed in a warming climate scenario. This would have been a more realistic choice given that rising temperatures are consistent with an increased meltwater discharge from Greenland. Under pre-industrial conditions there is no reason for the Greenland Ice Sheet to melt. Admittedly, one could argue that in a greenhouse gas warming scenario the AMOC may be more sensitive to fresh water hosing and that the AMOC could already shut down in response to a smaller fresh water input (e.g. Lin et al., 2023).
Finally, even though complex, the Earth System Model used by van Westen et al. (2024) has a resolution of about 100 km in the ocean. At this resolution a model cannot simulate fast- flowing currents such as the Gulf Stream and the associated sharp temperature and salinity fronts are not adequately resolved. In reality, a fresh water discharge would not spread evenly across the entire basin between 20°N and 50°N but would be entrained in the fast boundary currents around Greenland (e.g. Marsh et al., 2010; Frajka-Williams et al., 2016) and subsequently the Subpolar Gyre. How much a higher model resolution and a more realistic discharge rate of fresh water along the coast of Greenland would affect the sensitivity of the AMOC to fresh water perturbations is not yet known. Neither do we know if the fresh water discharges we can realistically expect from the Greenland Ice Sheet in the coming decades to centuries are large enough to push the AMOC past a tipping point. The past can only serve as a partial analogue for the future here: the rapid changes found in the paleorecord during ice ages happened in a climatic background very different to today’s, with lower temperatures and about three times as much fresh water locked in land ice than today (global sea level was about 130 m lower than today during the Last Glacial Maximum). On the other hand there is emerging evidence that the AMOC may have undergone prolonged phases (up to 1000+ years) of reduction during previous interglacial periods (the warm periods between ice ages; Galaasen et al., 2020) suggesting that large AMOC changes can occur in warm climates.
The AMOC’s likely future fate remains an important question, though one that we cannot yet answer based on our current level of understanding.
Spotlight article by Joel Hirschi1, Hege-Beate Fredriksen2, Laura de Steur2, Adam Blaker1, David Thornally3, Yevgeny Aksenov1, Eleanor Frajka-Williams4 & Jon Robson5
1 National Oceanography Centre, UK; 2 Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway; 3 University College London, UK; 4 Universitaet Hamburg, Germany; 5 University of Reading, UK
The Atlantic Ocean’s currents are on the verge of collapse. This is what it means for the planet – article by Prof. David Thornalley in BBC Science Focus Magazine (October 2024)
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