{"id":39096,"date":"2026-04-16T18:52:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T16:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/?p=39096"},"modified":"2026-04-16T18:53:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T16:53:59","slug":"the-irreversible-collapse-of-the-atlantic-currents-means-the-world-is-expecting-further-warming-and-drastic-temperature-differences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/2026\/04\/16\/the-irreversible-collapse-of-the-atlantic-currents-means-the-world-is-expecting-further-warming-and-drastic-temperature-differences\/","title":{"rendered":"Irreversible collapse of Atlantic currents: The world awaits further warming and drastic temperature differences"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC), a key system of ocean currents that regulates Earth's climate and includes the famous Gulf Stream, may be on the verge of collapse, according to scientific evidence. Although such an event has been thought for many years to be would bring about a sharp cooling of the northern hemisphere and slow down global warming, most recently models<\/span><\/a> reveal a much more complex and threatening scenario. Stopping these currents will set off a chain reaction: causing a massive release of carbon from the ocean depths into the atmosphere, leading to additional global warming and creating drastic temperature extremes across the planet.<\/p>\n

A system on the verge of breaking point<\/strong><\/p>\n

In climatology, the AMOC circulation is considered one of the so-called climatic tipping elements, which can exist in multiple equilibrium states. How this circulation behaves after a collapse depends crucially on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. While at lower, pre-industrial levels of CO2 (around 280 ppm), the system could recover after an induced collapse, models suggest that at CO2 levels above 350 ppm the AMOC becomes bistable. Simply put: if the currents collapse at today's and future high greenhouse gas concentrations, this state will be irreversible and the currents will remain permanently "off".<\/p>\n

While direct observations continue to provide an inconclusive signal, several studies using indirect indicators suggest that the AMOC is already weakening and is currently at its weakest in a thousand years. Although the IPCC assessment report states that a complete shutdown of the currents by the end of this century is unlikely, recent research warns that this risk may be seriously underestimated.<\/p>\n

Hidden threat in the oceans: Carbon release<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most previous studies have focused primarily on how the AMOC collapse would affect the physical distribution of heat and climate, mostly under pre-industrial conditions. These studies have consistently found a significant decrease in overall surface temperatures. However, recent long-term simulations using the fast and comprehensive climate model CLIMBER-X have revealed a surprising mechanism closely linked to the planet's carbon cycle.<\/p>\n

If the currents in the North Atlantic stop, the global ocean will immediately react at the opposite end of the world \u2013 near Antarctica. The rapid weakening of the AMOC will drastically reduce the depth of water circulation in the north, but at the same time it will trigger a process called deep convection in the Southern Ocean. This intense convection will start extremely mixing the old, deep layers of the ocean, which are a huge reservoir of carbon.<\/p>\n

As a result, enormous amounts of dissolved inorganic carbon from the deep are released directly into the atmosphere in the form of CO2. According to simulations, an irreversible collapse of the AMOC would lead to a sharp increase in atmospheric CO2 of 47 to 83 ppm, representing a net release of 100 to 175 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere. These values increase in direct proportion to how high the initial concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is, since in a warmer climate the oceans retain much more carbon.<\/p>\n

Temperature extremes: Winter in the north, extreme heat in the south<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although the massive release of carbon will cause global warming, regional temperature changes will be asymmetric and devastating, as the distribution of heat on the planet will completely change.<\/p>\n

The Northern Hemisphere will experience an extremely sharp cooling. The Arctic regions (especially at latitudes 60\u00b0N\u201390\u00b0N) would cool by an average of 7\u00b0C after the collapse of the currents. The collapse will cut off the transport of heat from the sunny tropics to the North Atlantic. The subsequent local cooling will be massively amplified by the reflectivity (albedo) of sea ice \u2013 the more ice that forms, the more sunlight will be reflected back into space, which will further lower the temperature.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the Southern Hemisphere and especially Antarctica (60\u00b0S \u2013 90\u00b0S) would face a warming of around 6\u00b0C. If we add to this collapse the long-term ongoing global warming (for example, at a stable CO2 level of 450 ppm), the combined effect of regional warming could exceed a frightening 10\u00b0C in some southern regions. As deep convection brings relatively warmer water to the surface, this prevents the formation of sea ice, and vast areas of the Southern Ocean will be completely ice-free.<\/p>\n

Overall impact: The Earth will warm, not cool<\/strong><\/p>\n

If we were to include only ocean circulation in climate calculations, without the effect of released carbon, the AMOC collapse would cool the Earth globally by about 0.2 to 0.3 \u00b0C. But the gigantic emission of greenhouse gases from the depths around Antarctica completely reverses this cooling effect of ocean dynamics. The result will ultimately be an increase in global average surface temperature. When the system returns to a new equilibrium after the collapse and all the changes, global temperatures will remain 0.17 to 0.27 \u00b0C higher than they were before the collapse itself.<\/p>\n

The reason why the Earth does not warm much more is because of terrestrial forests and ecosystems. The terrestrial carbon cycle acts as a powerful emergency brake that absorbs some of this released ocean CO2. If the land did not start to absorb carbon from the oceans as a compensatory measure, warming would reach more than 0.5 \u00b0C and atmospheric CO2 would rise by a catastrophic 130 ppm. However, scientists warn that due to deforestation (for example in the Amazon) and global climate change, some natural carbon sinks are gradually turning into carbon sources, which puts this natural safety net in considerable uncertainty.<\/p>\n

A warning straight from the ice ages<\/strong><\/p>\n

These theoretical findings fit neatly into the geological record. Ice cores from Antarctica show that during the last ice age, when the northern ice sheets were massively melting (so-called Heinrich events), the collapse of the AMOC triggered an identical process: southern convection kicked in, and atmospheric carbon, along with Antarctic temperatures, suddenly rose. While it was only about 15 ppm CO2 back then, today and in the future, when our oceans contain far more carbon due to emissions, the response will be a hundred times worse.<\/p>\n

The collapse of the Atlantic currents is not at all a \u201esafety switch\u201c that will protect us from warming by a new ice age. The collapse of the AMOC will irreversibly disrupt the global flow of heat and carbon. It will bring harsh winters to Europe and the North, drive enormous heat to Antarctica, and release so much CO2 into the atmosphere that it will further increase the average global temperature in the long term. Such a permanent climate risk only confirms the absolute necessity of decarbonizing society to prevent irreversible global change. JRi&CO2AI<\/strong><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC), a key system of ocean currents that regulates Earth's climate and includes the famous Gulf Stream, may be on the verge of collapse, according to scientific evidence. Although such an event has been thought for many years to be<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klimaticka-zmena"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39096"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39099,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39096\/revisions\/39099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}