A sudden stop to currents in the Atlantic Ocean that could plunge large parts of Europe into a deep The long-feared nightmare scenario triggered by the melting of the Greenland ice sheet due to global warming is still at least decades away, if not longer, but perhaps not centuries, as once thought, according to a new study in the journal Nature. Science Advances The study, the first to use complex simulations and incorporate multiple factors, uses a key measurement to track the strength of the vital general ocean circulation, which is slowing.

A collapse of the current — called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC — would change weather around the world because it would shut down one of the planet’s key climate and ocean forces. Over decades, it would lower temperatures in northwestern Europe by 9 to 27 degrees (5 to 15 degrees Celsius), spread Arctic ice much further south, increase heat even further in the Southern Hemisphere, alter global rainfall patterns and disrupt the Amazon, the study said. Other scientists said it would be a catastrophe that could cause global food and water shortages.

(Seth Borenstein, more at phys.org)