The collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — a system of ocean currents that pulls warm water from the Southern Hemisphere and the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere — could put some parts of the globe in a “deep freeze,” according to a new study by researchers from the Netherlands.
The findings suggest that, under an intermediate greenhouse gas emissions scenario, global heating would not be enough to outweigh the cooling effects of an AMOC collapse, reported Carbon Brief.
“The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) moderates the European climate. A substantially weaker AMOC under climate change may cause a cooler Europe in a warmer world,” the authors of the study wrote. “Apart from temperature changes, winter storms are expected to strengthen and give rise to large day-to-day temperature fluctuations under a substantially weaker AMOC. The European temperatures of the (far) future are set by the AMOC strength and the amount of global warming.”
NEW – Ocean current ‘collapse’ could trigger ‘profound cooling’ in northern Europe – even with global warming | @ceciliakeating.carbonbrief.org w/comment from Rene van Westen
Read here: buff.ly/iMXdkOR
— Carbon Brief (@carbonbrief.org) June 11, 2025 at 9:00 AM
In the world modeled in the study, one out of every 10 London winters could bring low temperatures close to minus-four degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, winter extremes in Oslo, Norway, could drop to around minus-54.4 degrees.
To help visualize the global impacts of a collapse of AMOC, the scientists created an interactive map.
Scientists have warned that continued global heating due to human-caused climate change could result in AMOC reaching a “tipping point.”
“What if the AMOC collapses and we have climate change? Does the cooling win or does the warming win?” asked co-author of the findings René van Westen, a marine and atmospheric researcher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, as CNN reported.
Van Westen told CNN theirs was the first study to use a complex, modern climate model to answer that question.
The study focused mostly on the impacts of an “intermediate scenario with AMOC collapse.”
The researchers considered a scenario where AMOC weakened by 80 percent and the planet’s temperature was roughly two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Even in the hotter world, they found that Europe would experience “substantial cooling.”
The scientists found that sea ice would spread into Scandinavia, the Netherlands and parts of the U.S. In these areas, cooling would be amplified by the sun’s rays being reflected off the white surface of snow and ice.
“[The new study] uses a sophisticated climate model with good regional resolution – far better than what was possible 26 years ago. The model confirms the long-standing concern that an AMOC collapse would have massive impacts on European climate, in this case focusing on temperature extremes,” Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of physics of the oceans at Potsdam University, who did not contribute to the research, told Carbon Brief.
Uncertainty in the face of serious danger is of course no reason to ignore it.
Passing that #AMOC tipping point by mid-century looks increasingly likely in light of recent studies.
And there’s also a more imminent, albeit a bit less detrimental risk:
bsky.app/profile/rahm…— Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf (@rahmstorf.bsky.social) June 11, 2025 at 11:38 AM
The “profound cooling” with more intense winter extremes in northwest Europe would be contrasted with slightly cooler summer temperatures. This would mean Europeans would see dramatic temperature swings throughout the year.
“The extreme winters would be like living in an ice age. But at the same time summer temperature extremes are barely impacted – they are slightly cooler than they would be due to global warming, but still with hotter extremes than the preindustrial climate,” said Professor Tim Lenton, University of Exeter chair of climate change and Earth system science. “This means the seasonality of the climate is radically increased. In extreme years it would be like coming out of the freezer into a frying pan of summer heatwaves.”
The study, “European Temperature Extremes Under Different AMOC Scenarios in the Community Earth System Model,” was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
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