Thread: The UK isn't running AMOC

Time to buy up some hills, its always best to buy a ski resort before it becomes a ski resort


How the UK could become as cold as Canada by 2050


Climate scientists fear a 'cold blob' in the Atlantic Ocean may destroy the UK's mild climate, bringing Arctic conditions


It’s 2080. Three feet of snow line the streets of London. The river Thames is frozen, as it always is now. Elsewhere in the UK, Scotland has become an Arctic wilderness and sea ice can be spotted from the northern coast. Thanks to plummeting temperatures, only 7 per cent of Britain is now farmable. The price of food has, of course, skyrocketed. Riots have ensued. Rationing is enforced.


This is the future that some climate scientists fear. While much of the world is set to grow hotter as a result of the climate crisis, the UK could soon face a different fate. Off the coast of Greenland, and just off the west coast of Ireland, sea temperatures are plummeting. It is creating an area of water that climate scientists are dubbing the “cold blob”.


You might be forgiven for assuming that this area of cold could bring relief to a rapidly warming northern hemisphere. Perhaps this will create a cool breeze that will help to keep the UK mild and temperate? You would be wrong.


Bill McGuire, a professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London (UCL), believes that Arctic temperatures could soon be our new reality. “At the moment, global heating is – as you would expect – making the UK hotter not colder, and there is no sign of any falling temperature trend,” he says.


But this warmth is thanks to the presence of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a system of currents over the Atlantic. “It includes the Gulf Stream, and is crucial to the climate of the UK, as it transports prodigious amounts of heat from the tropics to our part of the world,” explains McGuire.


This keeps the UK’s temperatures mild. “Without it, our climate would be more akin to the much colder Labrador in north-eastern Canada, [a region known for its reindeer], which is at about the same latitude.”


But the AMOC might be set to U-turn. “I would certainly say that the consensus is that the AMOC is now failing,” says McGuire. The last time the AMOC shut down was 115,000 to 112,000 years ago, just in time for the last Ice Age. “There have been many studies looking at variations in AMOC strength over time, and most of these reveal a weakening,” says McGuire. One study suggests that the AMOC has weakened by 15 per cent since the mid-20th century. A 2024 study has found that it has weakened further during every decade since 1950.


The AMOC is failing because of the “cold blob,” which has formed thanks to the rapid melting of Greenland’s ice sheets. “It is significant because it is freshening the northern waters of the AMOC, thereby reducing their density,” explains McGuire. “This is preventing AMOC waters from sinking and returning to the tropics, thereby slowing the whole circulation.”


There is not much we can do to stop this decline. “It may well be too late now to stop AMOC collapse,” he says. “Emissions are still going up when they need to be cut in half within five years to have any chance of dodging a permanent global temperature rise of 1.5°C. This is now practically impossible. We are unlikely to stay on this side of 2°C.”


He isn’t alone in his apathy. Almost half of climate scientists polled in a recent survey think the world will heat up by at least 3°C by 2100. “This would be quite possibly civilisation-busting,” he adds, soberly.


According to McGuire, there is no point in trying to turn back the clock. He believes our efforts are better spent preparing for the inevitable. If these temperatures reach the UK, society as we know it may be fundamentally changed. “In terms of mitigation, all countries need to ensure that infrastructure, food security, services and public engagement are robust enough to at least muddle through a time that is likely to require a war footing,” he explains.


A University of Exeter paper published in 2020 estimated that in Britain’s new climate, only 7 per cent of UK land would be suitable for arable farming, compared with the current 32 per cent. “Managing this looks like rationing, restricted civil liberties and the rest. That may well need to be in place for centuries.”


Fears around AMOC failure are still fairly new. In 2021, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change judged that the slowing of the AMOC would affect Britain’s climate only slightly. “We’re still not sure that the AMOC will undergo a collapse – most models would suggest not,” says Chris Brierly, professor of climate science at UCL. “But we cannot rule out that the process has already started. It could take several years, or several decades.”


A 2024 paper by researchers at the University of Copenhagen concluded that the AMOC isn’t likely to slow gradually, but may suddenly collapse entirely. They reported that this could happen as early as next year or, more likely, by the 2050s.


Still, some climate scientists are hesitant to label this an apocalyptic event. “Winters would become much colder than summers. As this would be in addition to climate change, it may just cancel out the warming in winter,” says Brierly.


If the UK and the rest of Northern Europe do fall into an Arctic winter, the rest of the world will also be impacted. “Global repercussions will be colossal, probably crashing the economy and bringing global society to its knees,” says McGuire. “The AMOC shutdown will cause the northward flowing currents to back up, rapidly pushing up sea levels along the eastern coasts of Canada and the US.”


If this shutdown does happen, it will also cause the weakening of the African and Asian monsoons, resulting in famine. This is before we even consider the rising global temperatures outside of Europe: “Increased warming of the southern hemisphere could further dry out the Amazon and increase melting across Antarctica, accelerating sea level rise even further.”


It’s a grim glimpse of the future. But, McGuire reminds me, it is our fault. “This is entirely the result of global heating caused by human activities,” he says. “Between 1994 and 2017 alone, melting ice across the planet – including from the Greenland ice sheet – added 28 trillion tonnes of water to the oceans. It is critical that monitoring of the AMOC is maintained, even increased.”


But, in spite of this, McGuire remains unconvinced that this will be managed with the urgency it requires. “European governments really need to be planning for a future that could well be much colder,” he says. “At the moment, as far as I know, there are no plans whatsoever in place.”

How the UK could become as cold as Canada by 2050

I get your drift.
Luckily family in Wimbledon can recycle racquets as snow shoes, and like Canadian clubbas cuddle with a Tie bloke over winter.


It's all started in the Golf of Amerika or am I Sargassing incorrectly.

For some reasoned insight into AMOC, have a look at Sabine's YT video. She is a particle physicist and something of a bête noire in academia because of her fact-based scepticism around the value of current research. She makes science somewhat accessible to the rest of us.

Originally Posted by taxexile

What a dumbfuck knobhead.






This is natures answer to the biggest problem facing the world. Overpopulation.

We deluded humans try in vain to chamge things with our silly electric cars, our ridiculous energy policies, stupidly taking the knee at the altar of climate change in the belief that we, the head honchos, can alter nature. How stupid we are, controlled by our egos like hormone ravaged teenagers.

We should just get on with enjoying our lives because in the greater scheme of things we are merely just another insignificant organism, one of millions and all under the control of nature. It is nature that has ensured the survival of the planet for billions of years, organisms come and go and have little say in the matter.

Famine, heat or ice, a terrible pandemic (or possibly radical islamic hubris) will depopulate the planet and restore the balance.

Yes, if the asteroids don't get us, the exploding Sun will.

So may as well just party eh?

Overpopulation isn't a problem. The rate of increase has been falling for 40 years but more importantly decent sex robots aren't far away. Once they're widely available, many men wont' be interested in women.

Originally Posted by 39TG

Overpopulation isn't a problem. The rate of increase has been falling for 40 years but more importantly decent sex robots aren't far away. Once they're widely available, many men wont' be interested in women.

It may be falling in the west where women have become obese potty mouthed botoxed and siliconed duck lipped lesbo blimps, and the men emasculated subservient limp dicked pooftahs, but in the global south, wherever the fuck that is, they are breeding like rabbits.

Overpopulation IS the problem. There are not enough resources to support the demand. ( food, water, consumer goods) that are stripping the planet of natural products resulting in everything, including clothing, being made from plastics. Read about the damage being done to us by the micro particles of plastic that are accumulating in our organs leading to increased cancers etc. Hardly any of our food is naturally grown, to support the demand it must be produced on an industrial scale with the aid of chemicals that do us no good at all.

Originally Posted by 39TG

more importantly decent sex robots aren't far away. Once they're widely available, many men wont' be interested in women.

well with AI built in it won't take long before the women dolls start understanding the value of sex and start rationing it for clothing and shoe upgrades.

I confess i'm not sure how we got here from a change to the gulf stream

Originally Posted by 39TG

decent sex robots aren't far away.

I am looking for an indecent one. Do they take themselves off to the shower and come back clean, without human intervention? Asking for a friend.

^ I thought you wanted indecent ones.

Originally Posted by 39TG

many men wont' be interested in women.

Many women have already decided they don't need men when they have state of the art sex toys that with a push of a button can get them off in a few minutes. Better than a sex robot.

And on topic, Canada isn't that cold... hehe.

Originally Posted by taxexile

It may be falling in the west where women have become obese potty mouthed botoxed and siliconed duck lipped lesbo blimps, and the men emasculated subservient limp dicked pooftahs, but in the global south, wherever the fuck that is, they are breeding like rabbits.

Sounds like you have it all figured it.