AMOC Policy Brief: Polar and Atlantic Change for Europe

EPOC’s new AMOC policy brief sets out how climate-driven changes in the Atlantic, the Southern Ocean and the Arctic are creating growing risks for Europe’s climate, economy and long-term resilience. One Ocean: What polar and Atlantic change means for Europe is co-produced with fellow Horizon Europe project OCEAN:ICE, and brings together the latest evidence on the AMOC, the polar regions, and what their combined change means for European policy.

Register to attend the Brussels launch event, Friday 11 September, 12:30–16:30, in person or online. Attendance is free.

Cover of EPOC and OCEAN:ICE's AMOC policy brief, One Ocean: What Polar and Atlantic Change Means for Europe

EPOC’s contribution to the brief

The brief draws on new EPOC research, including work led by early-career researchers.

  • A whole-Atlantic picture of AMOC heat transport. EPOC built the first basin-wide view of north-south heat transport, spanning 65°N to 35°S from 2004 to 2020, led by Kiko Calafat (NOC).
  • A longer memory for the AMOC. Palaeoclimate reconstructions extend the record back to 1850, revealing a major reorganisation around 1870, led by Jack Wharton (UCL).
  • The AMOC isn’t a simple conveyor belt. EPOC evidence shows the AMOC behaves coherently across latitudes over long timescales but partially decouples over shorter ones, meaning single-latitude monitoring can’t capture its full behaviour. María Jesús Rapanague (MPI-M) leads this connectivity research within EPOC.

For the full evidence base, see EPOC’s AMOC observing system and publications pages.

 

Why the AMOC matters for Europe

Europe enjoys a climate far milder than its latitude would suggest, sustained by the AMOC, the ocean system that carries heat from the tropics and Southern Hemisphere towards northern latitudes. That heat transport is equivalent to around one million average-sized nuclear power stations running continuously. The AMOC regulates European temperatures, rainfall, marine ecosystems and fisheries. Its disruption would be among the most consequential climate risks Europe could face.

Understanding this risk properly means looking beyond the Atlantic alone. The brief argues for a pole-to-pole perspective, since the Southern Ocean and the Arctic both drive AMOC variability in ways that ripple back into European climate.

Three policy recommendations

The brief sets out three recommendations for European policymakers.

  1. Treat ocean and polar observing as permanent strategic infrastructure. Sustained, multi-latitude monitoring across the Atlantic and both polar regions needs stable, long-term funding, not project-by-project support.
  2. Close the ice sheet gap in climate models. Current climate projections don’t include dynamic ice sheets, leaving a structural gap between the models informing policy and the physical system they represent.
  3. Connect ocean and polar science directly to risk management and adaptation planning. Findings on sea level, the AMOC and polar ice loss need translating into usable regional and sectoral information for the communities most exposed to this change.

Join the discussion in Brussels

One Ocean underpins a science-policy event at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels on Friday 11 September, 12:30–16:30 (networking from 11:30), in person or online. Speakers include representatives from the G7 Future of the Seas and Ocean Initiative, the Arctic Council, WWF’s European Policy Office, and Daniela Schmidt, coordinating lead author of the IPCC’s Working Group II chapter on Europe.

Register here. Attendance is free.

Read the brief

Meijers, A., Mottram, R., Frajka-Williams, E., Gunn, V., & Grigoratou, M. (2026). One Ocean: What polar and Atlantic change means for Europe. OCEAN:ICE & EPOC. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21919053

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