As someone who does research in this part of the world, the slowing/stopping of the AMOC is terrifying to me. There's already really significant warming and major changes happening in marine...
As someone who does research in this part of the world, the slowing/stopping of the AMOC is terrifying to me. There's already really significant warming and major changes happening in marine ecosystems - I genuinely have no idea what will happen to ecosystems or people if the AMOC stops. A huge part of Europe's climate, and the relative mildness of winter weather, could be totally changed by this. And then what happens? Models can't tell us what the results are going to be with any kind of certainty, and I think the social consequences could be quite dire, without even considering the conservation aspects. I'm glad to see this finally getting mainstream attention, but this is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.
I'm trying to not give in to climate doomerism, but I have no idea what else to feel in its stead. In this political/economic/cultural climate, even if we can project with 100% certainty something...
I'm trying to not give in to climate doomerism, but I have no idea what else to feel in its stead. In this political/economic/cultural climate, even if we can project with 100% certainty something disastrous will happen in the next 20 years, I don't feel like we have the collective will to do anything about it. Canada just lost Measles Elimination status, and that's as easy to understand and empirical, personal, immediate and results clear as possible. Measles was something we saw ravage the population less than 100 years ago, we saw vaccines eliminated it, vaccines are free, there are no economic trade offs at all, and we gave up on vaccines.
Climate change is something much longer, something new, and it'll cost money to fix. We're not going to do a darn thing.
So I guess, there's no point missing sleep over it. Try to predict places that'll be least affected and move there in the next 50 years beating out the other waves of climate refugee? New tech will fix it when we cross that bridge so don't worry just keep doing research and voting good policies then surrendering to serenity prayer?
A Measles resurgence is just the tip of the iceberg in Canada and the rest of the over-developed world. I genuinely believe that wealth inequality; even just within individual countries, is by far...
A Measles resurgence is just the tip of the iceberg in Canada and the rest of the over-developed world. I genuinely believe that wealth inequality; even just within individual countries, is by far the number one most damaging issue affecting the largest group of people. There are definitely issues that are affecting smaller numbers of people much more severely (things like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Palestinian genocide, and the Uyghur crisis) but on a grand scale there are billions of people living in poverty and most of the rest are not that much better.
It's impossible to expect anyone who is struggling to afford to live in a safe home, can't pay for nourishing food, and doesn't have access to even minimal amounts of healthcare to even begin to care about how we are absolutely destroying the ecosystems that took hundreds of millions of years to form.
Until we stop allowing the 00.001% of the world to control, manipulate, and devastate all of our resources; we have no hope of making any meaningful changes. The system of monarchs, nobles, and royalty controlling the masses was always heading this way, ever since the beginning, it's just accelerated at a dizzying rate over the last few hundred years. Today our monarchs and nobles look a little different, but in the end they're the same dangerous, damaging, and cowardly parasites they always have been.
I hope though that you, and others, don't let the depressing big picture keep you from taking small meaningful acts, too. I have been so amazed by technological changes in the last decade -...
I hope though that you, and others, don't let the depressing big picture keep you from taking small meaningful acts, too. I have been so amazed by technological changes in the last decade - massive increases in the use of wind and solar across the world, major declines in ICE vehicles, a growing movement by young people to talk about and demand climate action. Being part of those movements, either actively or passively with your wallet does make a difference. Discussing climate news with friends and family does help make these narratives more widespread. A couple of journalists lately have interviewed me about old papers I've published that got a fair amount of public interest, so I know people care about these issues, and I think if public sentiment remains committed and forceful, we will achieve changes that can help. We probably can't do anything about the AMOC, but we may be able to help make those impacts less terrible. It's very understandable that people want to bury themselves in ignorance and good feelings, but as much as you can, please, please keep fighting and calling out injustice, including climate injustice.
The funding for a lot of research in the States and Canada has dried up, and climate results are being hidden or lied about. Talk about them. Put them on your social media. Don't let bad governments hide this information from the public who paid for it. The critters I work with cannot advocate for themselves, and so I go to work every day to try and be a voice for them, but I can't do it alone. There are days where I want to (and do) hide from the onslaught of depressing news, but some of the biggest actions of resistance are your attention and continued concern about these topics. I promise you, the articles you click on and the purchases you make are of great interest to those corporate overlords, and you can genuinely contribute to positive change.
Agreed. It's really difficult, and yet so vital, to both let go of the feeling of control while also resisting the might of fossil fuel companies, disinformation campaigns, etc. It's crazy to do...
Agreed. It's really difficult, and yet so vital, to both let go of the feeling of control while also resisting the might of fossil fuel companies, disinformation campaigns, etc. It's crazy to do so given the scale, but living your life is as important as fighting for it.
I suppose that sometimes living your life can be a form of resistance as well. Easier said than done, though.
To some extent I try and keep myself out of it as much as possible...but some of my research is on these affected ecosystems, and going to these places and watching the consequences in action is...
To some extent I try and keep myself out of it as much as possible...but some of my research is on these affected ecosystems, and going to these places and watching the consequences in action is heartbreaking already. Even like 10 years ago with the early heatwaves. That's what's so hard about this - there are places where those climate range shifts are already happening, and you can't completely escape it. Trying to run into the burning ecosystem to help put out the fire, or at least understand it, is also very difficult and honestly really upsetting, and work conferences are a whole lot of bad news. But if I walk away, who is left to deal with it? Who is going to help?
Thank you for being there to help. I cried the whole night after reading about the dolphins that boiled in their hotter than hot tub lake. The news about zero penguin chicks from 4/5 colonies...
Thank you for being there to help. I cried the whole night after reading about the dolphins that boiled in their hotter than hot tub lake. The news about zero penguin chicks from 4/5 colonies surviving, baby puffins starving with stomachs full of plastics.... You're right, someone needs to still be helping, and giving up is just not even helping those who are helping. .... Thank you for doing what you do.
Thank you for caring! It's a really tough job and I feel like my contributions are just a drop in the bucket, but I think every droplet helps. As I posted below, I think a big way forward is for...
Thank you for caring! It's a really tough job and I feel like my contributions are just a drop in the bucket, but I think every droplet helps. As I posted below, I think a big way forward is for non-research people to keep caring and talking about these things, too - whether that looks like things you buy (or don't), articles you read, things you talk about, movements you support, protests you attend, I do think those things matter a lot. My research doesn't mean squat if people out there don't care, or don't ask for or demand better outcomes. I have noticed public interest in climate change and consequences, and I think as long as those interests continue, we will struggle our way toward better solutions, bit by bit. And even if we can't save every dolphin or puffin or sardine, we can help give the ones that are still here a fighting chance, and more time to adapt to these changes. That alone is a meaningful outcome!
:) I think that's the most compelling reason I have to date, on why I shouldn't give up yet. Because people like you haven't given up yet, and are saving as many as you can.
:) I think that's the most compelling reason I have to date, on why I shouldn't give up yet. Because people like you haven't given up yet, and are saving as many as you can.
FWIW, I actually found this report to be somewhat comforting. I am already well in the camp that the tipping point for the AMOC--if it's going to collapse at all--is either too soon for humans to...
FWIW, I actually found this report to be somewhat comforting. I am already well in the camp that the tipping point for the AMOC--if it's going to collapse at all--is either too soon for humans to prevent (not technically, but politically), or already actually in the past.
The "good news" (such as it is) from this report is that, even if the tipping point is already behind us, the actual slowdown/shutdown of the AMOC is still, likely, a century or more away. Additionally, whenever it does happen, these models strongly suggest that it will be a slow shutdown (in human terms, at least) of multiple decades ... providing a generational timeframe to adapt.
We have had previous studies and reports suggesting that A) the AMOC could shutdown within the next decade or three, and that B) it could happen extremely fast, potentially in under a decade -- both circumstances that would have been utterly devastating for Europe.
So, IDK what human society will look like a century from now, but I am confident that we will have plenty of other climate- and resource-related catastrophes to deal with long before the AMOC shuts down (if it ever does).
From the article: … Here is the study: Shutdown of northern Atlantic overturning after 2100 following deep mixing collapse in CMIP6 projections Apparently there are some signs that it may be...
From the article:
Climate models recently indicated that a collapse before 2100 was unlikely but the new analysis examined models that were run for longer, to 2300 and 2500. These show the tipping point that makes an Amoc shutdown inevitable is likely to be passed within a few decades, but that the collapse itself may not happen until 50 to 100 years later.
The research found that if carbon emissions continued to rise, 70% of the model runs led to collapse, while an intermediate level of emissions resulted in collapse in 37% of the models. Even in the case of low future emissions, an Amoc shutdown happened in 25% of the models.
…
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, analysed the standard models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The scientists were particularly concerned to find that in many models the tipping point is reached in the next decade or two, after which the shutdown of the Amoc becomes inevitable owing to a self-amplifying feedback.
Apparently there are some signs that it may be happening already. In the abstract, here is the part about what’s been measured:
Maximum mixed-layer depths in the observations are still dominated by internal variability but notably feature downward trends over the last 5–10 years in all deep mixing regions for all data products analysed. This could be merely variability but is also consistent with the model-predicted decline of deep mixing.
They don’t think it will be abrupt:
In IPCC language the term abrupt refers to events taking place over a few decades or less (<30 years) and persisting at least over a few decades. In our view the term abrupt is not applicable to the future shutdown of the overturning associated with North Atlantic deep water (NADW) as seen in climate models, which will be discussed further below.
…
Observation-based data products of mixing depths in the northern Atlantic (figure 6) still show large variability, so that the decline of mixing depths seen during the past 5–10 years may or may not be the beginning of the end of deep convection. But this decline is consistent with what the models project. It is a matter of concern how convection in climate models switches from a phase of internal variability to a phase of terminal decline around the current time (figures 5(c) and (d)), even though mixed-layer depths in the models are overestimated.
…
Of particular concern is our finding that deep convection in many models stops in the next decade or two, and that this is a tipping point which pushes the northern AMOC into a terminal decline from which it will take centuries to recover, if at all. As a result, CMIP6 models point to a significantly higher risk than previously assumed […]
…
[W]hen projections ending in year 2100 do not show such northern AMOC shutdown this does not imply that the northern AMOC is not in the process of vanishing in those simulations, but simply that the length of the simulation was too short to show whether models are en route to a northern AMOC shutdown or not.
So, this is something that’s starting soon (in the next few decades) but the main effects are expected to be after 2100.
As someone who does research in this part of the world, the slowing/stopping of the AMOC is terrifying to me. There's already really significant warming and major changes happening in marine ecosystems - I genuinely have no idea what will happen to ecosystems or people if the AMOC stops. A huge part of Europe's climate, and the relative mildness of winter weather, could be totally changed by this. And then what happens? Models can't tell us what the results are going to be with any kind of certainty, and I think the social consequences could be quite dire, without even considering the conservation aspects. I'm glad to see this finally getting mainstream attention, but this is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.
I'm trying to not give in to climate doomerism, but I have no idea what else to feel in its stead. In this political/economic/cultural climate, even if we can project with 100% certainty something disastrous will happen in the next 20 years, I don't feel like we have the collective will to do anything about it. Canada just lost Measles Elimination status, and that's as easy to understand and empirical, personal, immediate and results clear as possible. Measles was something we saw ravage the population less than 100 years ago, we saw vaccines eliminated it, vaccines are free, there are no economic trade offs at all, and we gave up on vaccines.
Climate change is something much longer, something new, and it'll cost money to fix. We're not going to do a darn thing.
So I guess, there's no point missing sleep over it. Try to predict places that'll be least affected and move there in the next 50 years beating out the other waves of climate refugee? New tech will fix it when we cross that bridge so don't worry just keep doing research and voting good policies then surrendering to serenity prayer?
A Measles resurgence is just the tip of the iceberg in Canada and the rest of the over-developed world. I genuinely believe that wealth inequality; even just within individual countries, is by far the number one most damaging issue affecting the largest group of people. There are definitely issues that are affecting smaller numbers of people much more severely (things like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Palestinian genocide, and the Uyghur crisis) but on a grand scale there are billions of people living in poverty and most of the rest are not that much better.
It's impossible to expect anyone who is struggling to afford to live in a safe home, can't pay for nourishing food, and doesn't have access to even minimal amounts of healthcare to even begin to care about how we are absolutely destroying the ecosystems that took hundreds of millions of years to form.
Until we stop allowing the 00.001% of the world to control, manipulate, and devastate all of our resources; we have no hope of making any meaningful changes. The system of monarchs, nobles, and royalty controlling the masses was always heading this way, ever since the beginning, it's just accelerated at a dizzying rate over the last few hundred years. Today our monarchs and nobles look a little different, but in the end they're the same dangerous, damaging, and cowardly parasites they always have been.
I hope though that you, and others, don't let the depressing big picture keep you from taking small meaningful acts, too. I have been so amazed by technological changes in the last decade - massive increases in the use of wind and solar across the world, major declines in ICE vehicles, a growing movement by young people to talk about and demand climate action. Being part of those movements, either actively or passively with your wallet does make a difference. Discussing climate news with friends and family does help make these narratives more widespread. A couple of journalists lately have interviewed me about old papers I've published that got a fair amount of public interest, so I know people care about these issues, and I think if public sentiment remains committed and forceful, we will achieve changes that can help. We probably can't do anything about the AMOC, but we may be able to help make those impacts less terrible. It's very understandable that people want to bury themselves in ignorance and good feelings, but as much as you can, please, please keep fighting and calling out injustice, including climate injustice.
The funding for a lot of research in the States and Canada has dried up, and climate results are being hidden or lied about. Talk about them. Put them on your social media. Don't let bad governments hide this information from the public who paid for it. The critters I work with cannot advocate for themselves, and so I go to work every day to try and be a voice for them, but I can't do it alone. There are days where I want to (and do) hide from the onslaught of depressing news, but some of the biggest actions of resistance are your attention and continued concern about these topics. I promise you, the articles you click on and the purchases you make are of great interest to those corporate overlords, and you can genuinely contribute to positive change.
Agreed. It's really difficult, and yet so vital, to both let go of the feeling of control while also resisting the might of fossil fuel companies, disinformation campaigns, etc. It's crazy to do so given the scale, but living your life is as important as fighting for it.
I suppose that sometimes living your life can be a form of resistance as well. Easier said than done, though.
To some extent I try and keep myself out of it as much as possible...but some of my research is on these affected ecosystems, and going to these places and watching the consequences in action is heartbreaking already. Even like 10 years ago with the early heatwaves. That's what's so hard about this - there are places where those climate range shifts are already happening, and you can't completely escape it. Trying to run into the burning ecosystem to help put out the fire, or at least understand it, is also very difficult and honestly really upsetting, and work conferences are a whole lot of bad news. But if I walk away, who is left to deal with it? Who is going to help?
Thank you for being there to help. I cried the whole night after reading about the dolphins that boiled in their hotter than hot tub lake. The news about zero penguin chicks from 4/5 colonies surviving, baby puffins starving with stomachs full of plastics.... You're right, someone needs to still be helping, and giving up is just not even helping those who are helping. .... Thank you for doing what you do.
Thank you for caring! It's a really tough job and I feel like my contributions are just a drop in the bucket, but I think every droplet helps. As I posted below, I think a big way forward is for non-research people to keep caring and talking about these things, too - whether that looks like things you buy (or don't), articles you read, things you talk about, movements you support, protests you attend, I do think those things matter a lot. My research doesn't mean squat if people out there don't care, or don't ask for or demand better outcomes. I have noticed public interest in climate change and consequences, and I think as long as those interests continue, we will struggle our way toward better solutions, bit by bit. And even if we can't save every dolphin or puffin or sardine, we can help give the ones that are still here a fighting chance, and more time to adapt to these changes. That alone is a meaningful outcome!
:) I think that's the most compelling reason I have to date, on why I shouldn't give up yet. Because people like you haven't given up yet, and are saving as many as you can.
FWIW, I actually found this report to be somewhat comforting. I am already well in the camp that the tipping point for the AMOC--if it's going to collapse at all--is either too soon for humans to prevent (not technically, but politically), or already actually in the past.
The "good news" (such as it is) from this report is that, even if the tipping point is already behind us, the actual slowdown/shutdown of the AMOC is still, likely, a century or more away. Additionally, whenever it does happen, these models strongly suggest that it will be a slow shutdown (in human terms, at least) of multiple decades ... providing a generational timeframe to adapt.
We have had previous studies and reports suggesting that A) the AMOC could shutdown within the next decade or three, and that B) it could happen extremely fast, potentially in under a decade -- both circumstances that would have been utterly devastating for Europe.
So, IDK what human society will look like a century from now, but I am confident that we will have plenty of other climate- and resource-related catastrophes to deal with long before the AMOC shuts down (if it ever does).
Maybe we'll get lucky and an asteroid will take us all out before it becomes a bigger issue.
A reduction or collapse of AMOC will also result in a higher sea level rise in eastern North America (3–4x higher than the global average).
From the article:
…
Here is the study:
Shutdown of northern Atlantic overturning after 2100 following deep mixing collapse in CMIP6 projections
Apparently there are some signs that it may be happening already. In the abstract, here is the part about what’s been measured:
They don’t think it will be abrupt:
…
…
…
So, this is something that’s starting soon (in the next few decades) but the main effects are expected to be after 2100.