Iceland Gearing Up For Atlantic Current Collapse

Iceland considers the risk of a critical Atlantic Ocean
current collapsing an existential threat. 

New research I posted about back in September about the possible collapse of a critical Atlantic Ocean current has Iceland on high alert. 

The newer research contradicted some earlier studies and said that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could shut down as soon as the middle of this century.  

That's really bad, because the current is what keeps western Europe mild and wet. Without the current, winters in western Europe would become something like central North America, and droughts would take hold. In effect, western Europe would suffer through a sort of regional ice age. 

This mess would, of course, be due to climate change.  

The collapse of the current would also cause bad, bad, worldwide effects, such as greatly increased water temperatures along United States East Coast. That would cause an abrupt rise in sea levels, since warm water expands. It would also might make the eastern United States more prone to hurricanes and other big storms. 

The collapse of the AMOC would also mess up rainfall amounts and seasons that farmers in Africa, India and South America have relied upon for centuries. 

Then there's Iceland. 

Like most of the rest of the world, Iceland has been warming up, thanks to climate change. The island nation way up in the North Atlantic actually saw their first mosquitoes in recorded history this year because the region had warmed up so much. 

If the AMOC shuts down, Iceland would definitely earn its name. It, too, benefits from the warmth of AMOC. 

Even though an AMOC collapse might not happen for a few decades, if at all, it has put Iceland on full alert:

According to Iceland Review:

"Iceland has, for the first time, classified a climate-related phenomenon as a national security threat, following warnings that a key Atlantic Ocean current system may be approaching collapse."

......"The move allows authorities to coordinate response plans across ministries, covering food and energy supplies, infrastructure and transport resilience."

MSN continues the story: 

"It is a direct threat to our national resilience and security.' Iceland Climate Minister Johann Pall Johansson said by email '(This) is the first time a specific climate-related phenomenon has been formally brought before the National Security Council as a potential existential threat.'"

Iceland is looking at a full range of possible effects of an AMOC crash, such as energy supplies, food security, infrastructure and transportation, both internal and with other nations.  

Other nations are taking notice, too. 

For instance, Ireland's weather service scientists briefed the nation's prime minister on the AMOC issue. Norway's environmental ministry said it was "seeking to deepen our understanding of the issue through new research" before determining whether to classify AMOC as a security risk,' MSN reported. 

INTERCONNECTED CHAOS

Of course, nobody knows when or if the AMOC will grind to a halt. If that happens, scientists think it would make Antarctica warm up even faster than it is now.

Newly released research also suggest that melting around West Antarctica now could help preserve the AMOC, or at least slow its demise.   

According to New Scientist:

"..it won't be enough to prevent major changes to the climate. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) would still decline buy 60 percent, and its full recovery would take 3,000 years."

Which seems to me a little long to wait, don't you think?

As always, there's a lot of ifs, questions and blank spots in the research done by Sacha Sinet at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. 

 New Scientist again:

"According to simulations by Sinet and his colleagues, the timing of the melting is key. If a centuries-long pulse of Antarctic meltwater arrives at the same time as massive melt from Greenland, it will only see up the AMOC shutdown. 

If the Antarctic water arrives about 1,000 years before the peak of Greenland's melting, however, the AMOC would weaken for several hundred years, but then recover over the next 3,000 years. While the AMOC eventually recovered in all scenarios, this early Antarctic melt prevented its total collapses and sped up its revival." 

In other words, climate change isn't as simple as the world just warming up. Everything is connected, so expect the unexpected when it comes to climate change. 

Is An Crucial Atlantic Ocean Current Called AMOC Ready To Go Amok?

Warm water heads north toward Europe, cools, 
eventually sinks, goes back south, warms up
and the process repeats itself.  However,
fresh water melting off the Arctic could stop
this circulation, causing extreme, sudden
changes in climate, especially in Europe.

 Is the AMOC ready to go amok?  

I should probably explain that one. 

The AMOC is the Atlantic Meridonal Overturning Circulation. It brings warm water from south to the northern Atlantic Ocean. That rent brings carbon, nutrients and other stuff to sustain a healthy population of fish and other aquatic animals.

It also keeps western and northern Europe much warmer than it would be, considering how far north that area is. If this circulation collapses, that region of the world would turn much, much colder in the winter. And much more variable in the summer. 

The problem is, climate change could make this circulation stop. It's already slowing down. 

For years, there's been a lot of speculation among scientists as to how far climate change needs to go before AMOC collapses. Now, a group of scientists are saying the risks of this circulation collapsing are underestimated. 

 As Gizmodo reports:

"The climate scientists quoted a 2023 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which said there is 'medium confidence' the AMOC won't abruptly collapse by 2100. If such a low likelihood event did happen, the report added, 'it would very likely cause abrupt shifts in regional weather patterns and water cycle."

Well, at least we have time to plan, right?

But what if it happens sooner? It seems a growing body of researchers think it might.  Some scientists say it could happen as soon as the middle of this century, say 20 or 30 years from now. That's not a lot of time for millions of people to brace themselves for sudden, radical shifts in the climate. 

Nordic nations would probably stop being able to grow their own food under the extreme weather conditions. 

That would be bad enough. But a collapse of AMOC would reverberate around the world, with big time climate changes worldwide.

An AMOC collapse would probably reverse climate change in the northern hemisphere, but that would not be a good thing.

Some European cities would get 10 to 20 degrees colder within just a few decades. Meanwhile, The Atlantic Ocean sea level would rise by more than two feet. Meanwhile, the southern hemisphere would turn much warmer than it already is, and the Antarctic ice cap would melt much faster than it is now, according to renewablematter.eu.

Overall, this circulation's shutdown would also reduce the worlds supply of food.

As I noted, we don't know when, or even if this nightmare scenario will happen. But scientists are definitely worried. 

The AMOC is slowing down, and could collapse, because of melting ice sheets in Greenland and other areas of the Arctic adjacent to the North Atlantic. 

The water flowing up from the south and keeping Europe mild in this AMOC circulation is pretty salty. Once the salty water makes it that far north, it cools and sinks because the high salinity increases its density. 

Fresh water from all that ice melting off of Greenland reduces the saltiness in the water, which in turn reduces the density of the water. So less surface water sinks, which slows the flow of the current. Scientists worry if too much fresh water from ice melt flows into the Atlantic, it'll shut off the current entirely.  

 Scientists have done research on how much fresh water it would take to shut the current off. But past studies uses simulations that provided unrealistic scenarios involving a bunch of fresh water gushing into the Atlantic all at once.

 In February this year, scientists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands used a complex climate model to simulate the collapse of the AMOC and discovered that it could be closer than previously thought.

The Dutch scientists' model kept gradually adding more and more fresh meltwater to the North Atlantic and concluded that could lead to a sudden collapse of the currents in less than 100 years. However, they weren't able to come up with a statistically reliable estimate of exactly when that would happen.  

We better hope it doesn't happen anytime soon. If it does, it'll make the kinds of climate disruptions we're already seeing now just a pleasant walk in the park.