surprise! North Atlantic Currents Stable – Is Wattage Increasing?

Article by Eric Worrell

Another nail in the coffin of climate models? A study published in the journal Nature found no evidence that the AMOC has declined over the past 60 years.

AMOC study: Critical ocean currents have not decreased over the past 60 years

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In the Atlantic, a system of interconnected ocean currents – the AMOC – transports water to oceans around the world, driven by a combination of wind and ocean density. Not only does it distribute heat, water and nutrients to the ocean, it also regulates the Earth's climate and weather.

As the climate continues to change and the atmosphere warms, many scientists worry that freshwater from melting polar ice caps could severely damage or even collapse the AMOC. While the decline of the AMOC would have serious consequences, a collapse would be truly catastrophic because oceanography Reported in October 2024.

With research on the AMOC's long-term future still uncertain, a team of scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) took a closer look at the past to help understand the AMOC's possible future.

In a new paper published in nature communicationsLater, scientists announced surprising news: the AMOC has not declined in the past 60 years, showing that it is currently more stable than expected.

“Our newspapers say that the Atlantic overturn has not abated yet;said study author Nicholas P. Foukal, adjunct scientist in physical oceanography at WHOI and assistant professor at the University of Georgia. “This says nothing about its futurebut the expected changes don’t seem to have happened yet.

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Learn more: https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/new-study-argues-amoc-has-not-declined-in-the-last-60-years/

Research summary;

Atlantic overturn inferred from air-sea heat flux shows no decline since 1960s

Jens Terhaar1,4,5, Linus Vogt 1,2 and Nicholas P. Foukal 1,3

Date of receipt: July 2, 2024
Acceptance date: December 6, 2024
Online release: January 15, 2025

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is critical to the uptake of carbon and heat in the global ocean and controls climate around the North Atlantic. Despite its importance, quantifying past changes in the AMOC and assessing its vulnerability to climate change remains highly uncertain. Here, we use 24 Earth system models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) to demonstrate that these temperature anomalies fail to robustly reconstruct the AMOC. Instead, we find that air-sea heat flux anomalies north of any given latitude in the North Atlantic between 26.5°N and 50°N are closely related to AMOC anomalies at that latitude on decadal and centennial timescales. On these time scales, the air-sea heat flux anomalies are closely related to the AMOC's northward heat flux anomalies driven by energy conservation. However, on annual time scales, air-sea heat flux anomalies are mainly affected by atmospheric changes and less affected by AMOCanomalies. According to the relationship identified here and observation-based estimates of past air-sea heat flux in the North Atlantic from reanalysis products, the decadal-mean AMOC at 26.5°N did not weaken from 1963 to 2017, although all latitudes There are big changes.

Learn more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55297-5.epdf

Michael Mann seems to favor the theory that AMOC is about to collapse.