What are the chances?
Sybren Drijfhout, chair of ocean and earth science at the University of Southampton and a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, said the Utrecht study was “solid.”
Drijfhout, who was not involved in the Utrecht paper, published a separate study Thursday that reached a similar conclusion about the AMOC reaching a tipping point this century, entering a decline before shutting down after the year 2100.
According to this study, the unlikely high-emissions scenario has a 70 percent chance of leading to such an AMOC collapse, while the moderate scenario — the 2.7 C increase the planet is on track for at the moment — sets out a 37 percent chance.
Yet even a low-emissions scenario in line with the 2015 Paris climate accord targets that limit warming to below 2 C, the researchers write, give a 25 percent chance of a shutdown.
“As far as current models suggest, we conclude that the risk of a northern AMOC shutdown is greater than previously thought,” Drijfhout and his colleagues wrote.
In his post, Hoekstra expressed frustration about climate becoming less of a priority in European politics in recent years despite the threat posed by global warming.
“There’s a sense out there that climate change has taken a backseat because we’re so busy dealing with [other] pressing concerns,” he wrote.
“Progress takes time … it’s not linear,” he continued, and insisted that “there’ll be moments when attention wanes. So a big thanks to these scientists for giving us another serious climate wake-up call.”