EPOC is a Horizon Europe-funded research project. We study the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC): how it works, how it has changed, and what its future holds. Institutions across Europe and North America are combining observations, palaeoclimate records, and climate models to resolve uncertainties about AMOC behaviour. Together, we examine how AMOC links to weather, sea level rise, ecosystems, and carbon uptake.
The project is coordinated by Universität Hamburg and brings together 24 partner institutions across Europe and North America. EPOC is funded under the Horizon Europe programme, grant agreement 101081383, and runs until 30 June 2027.
The AMOC, or Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, is a large-scale circulation pattern in the ocean. It regulates heat and rainfall across Europe and beyond. EPOC is working to understand how climate change will affect it.
We examine what the latest science says about AMOC collapse risk, separating near-term plausible risks from extreme scenarios that go beyond current evidence, and explaining why accurate communication matters.
Is the AMOC approaching a tipping point? EPOC scientists examine the modelling evidence and what it does — and does not — tell us about the risk of an abrupt shutdown.
Deep water heading south from the Arctic doesn't travel in a straight line. At the Flemish Cap, EPOC researchers found it leaks, scatters and transforms, with consequences for how the AMOC carries its signal across the whole Atlantic.
How do scientists know how the ocean and climate has varied in the distant past when observations only go back 70 years or so? The answer is in the mud at the bottom of the ocean.
The AMOC's strength fluctuates day to day and over centuries. EPOC scientists explain what drives these swings, and why even small changes ripple out to European heatwaves, sea levels and monsoon rainfall on the other side of the world.
EPOC research shows critical Atlantic Ocean currents kept going during last ice age New findings challenge ice age ocean circulation assumptions New results from EPOC research has revealed that during the last ice age, the Atlantic Ocean’s powerful current system remained active
EPOC scientists develop a powerful new tool for monitoring changes in ocean heat distribution, important for understanding ocean circulation and its role in shaping climate.
As part of the annual Fram Strait 2025 cruise conducted by the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), the science team from the UK’s National Oceanography Centre deployed a new suite of autonomous Lab-on-Chip (LoC) sensors on long-term moorings in the East Greenland Current.
EPOC is delighted to welcome a new partner – Havstovan, the Faroe Marine Research Institute – to the project team. Made possible by a grant from the EU’s ‘Hop-On Facility’, the Havstovan team will contribute time series data on the main exchanges across the Greenland-Scotland Ridge, as well as investigation of possibilities to close the largest gap in the existing observational system.
Number of peer-reviewed publications EPOC has contributed to.
See the full list of publications.