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community weblog
Running Amoc
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is declining rapidly. This is Not Good. tl;dr: we're fucked.
posted by Joan Rivers of Babylon on Apr 16, 2026 at 5:06 AM
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Previously in AMOC doom news.
Stefan Rahmstorf, interviewed for the FPP, is a good follow on bluesky.
An AMOC explainer from the Met Office Hadley Center.
posted by mittens at 5:43 AM
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I won't be alive long enough to be fucked by this, and we're living in the middle of a very large continent that won't likely be fucked directly by the failure of the AMOC... but goddammit we suck.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:04 AM
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directly doin' a lot of work there, Codger
posted by lalochezia at 6:16 AM
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No one ever talks about this but I find it one of the most likely civilization killing scenarios. The ocean, Bob. We need it.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:22 AM
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This article is claiming that in the next 20-30 years we have a better than 50% chance of the AMOC slowing dramatically, or stopping. If you understand what the AMOC does, this should chill you to the bone.
This would be, to put it lightly, very bad. Food production would crash, many people who currently live in places that are warm would become cold, many places that are cold would become warm, many places that are cold would get much colder, and many places that are warm would get much warmer. Its the kind of record scratch system change that makes everything big and small wobble then fall over.
I honestly think this would cause the very idea of nation states to dissolve as literally hundreds of millions to billions of climate refugees would be on the march looking for better places to live. Its such a rapid, and overwhelming change that it boggles the mind how one would even prepare for such a thing. Not a person on the planet would be left unaffected by this, it would likely trigger several wars, many deaths from hunger and plagues. Throwing essentially the entire world into chaos.
Honestly with such a short time frame to avert this, we must rapidly and totally shift away from burning things for energy, no longer pump heat trapping gasses into the atmosphere, and do anything possible to suck those gasses back out of the sky. The pace of change needed to avoid this might also destabilize our system to the point of break, but at least at the end we would have a better system than we do now, and maybe, just maybe avoid this catastrophe.
The good news (if one could even crowbar the idea of this having any relation to the concept of "good") is that perhaps this will be a sufficient motivator for the human species to really take a good hard look at what it is doing and change. At least I hope so.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by this, you should. I think before anyone does anything "about this" we should take time to really grieve for the loss of our ecosystem, for the gentle and stable climate that has existed for the last 10,000 years, for the biosphere that has shepherded in modern human civilization.
When you have done your crying, your weeping, your gnashing of teeth, your bargaining, and denial and when you have come out the other side a changed person, then get to work.
Build community, develop connections with your fellow human beings and not just that but your fellow trees, animals, rivers etc. Change who you are, and change your relationships to humans and other things. Then use those new changed communities to build power, and use that power to make rapid and totalizing change.
It can be done, it must be done, and we will do it. Get your head right, then go forth and make the world different than it is now.
I will see you all out there.
posted by stilgar at 6:37 AM
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My brain is still waking up , so at first I thought the title referred to rapidly declining readership at The Atlantic and thought it was little sensational. I mean, I love The Atlantic as much as the next MeFite, but come'on.
As Artful Codger relates, I'm in, what did they call it? Oh, yeah, flyover country, where it's easier to pretend such things don't matter, just like the majority of the population pretends we don't. (Hence the name.).
Here's a perverse perspective: are there places on Earth where the climate will become more hospitable as a result of this change? If so, watch to see who acquires the land.
posted by grimjeer at 6:42 AM
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The AMOC explainer link above is pretty clear that while they understand that greenhouse warming and arctic melt are having an effect, they haven't been measuring long enough to see anything other than things that can be attributed to short term variations.
Climate change is real, and the AMOC is important and may be shifting, but the science is still young, and the doom of this article may be a bit overstated.
posted by OHenryPacey at 6:50 AM
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I'm thrilled when the imminent destruction of life as we know it on earth is overstated. It should be.
The collapse of the ocean is the collapse of our blue marble.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:30 AM
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directly doin' a lot of work there, Codger
From just a climate perspective, there will be places on earth where the failure of the AMOC won't significantly alter that place's climate.
Of course the net effect on humanity will likely be catastrophic, and will be widespread.
(I believe that the upper crust already understand where the climate is headed, and rather than fix this, they are already hoarding wealth and buying up land in perceived "safe" and defensible locations, to be able to resist the hordes of displaced and desperate people who will be looking for help)
posted by Artful Codger at 7:44 AM
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Yup. The rise of "How do I keep paying my personal security forces when world currencies collapse" consulting and why the tech bros are obsessed with their free enterprise zones where they aren't subject to local labor & environmental laws (where they want to do things that will make climate change worse, not better).
posted by subdee at 8:25 AM
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If you want something specific to do, you can share around this video by Technology Connections https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM (auto link thing is broken and I don't remember the html sorry) where he explains why it's smarter to invest oil in the manufacture of solar panels, which keep producing energy for decades, rather than just lighting it on fire. And why it makes enough economic sense to turn fields of ethanol corn into fields of solar panels that farmers who can do math are doing it themselves (but it's not happening fast enough).
And maybe share around some Not Just Bikes videos, because I live in the Netherlands and used to live in the US so I can tell you everything he says is right.
posted by antinomia at 8:45 AM
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Climate change is real, and the AMOC is important and may be shifting, but the science is still young, and the doom of this article may be a bit overstated.
The shocking aspect of the study on which this article is based, for me, is that it did not take into account the possible effects of increased meltwater from Greenland — a virtual certainty — and 'the doom' is therefore understated.
posted by jamjam at 8:54 AM
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Anywhere whose climate is not profoundly affected by AMOC collapse will immediately become a target for war and expropriation.
Do you really think that Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are going to say, "oh, we are the richest people on the planet, you can definitely keep your house and land even though I would rather add it to my fiefdom"? Do you think that our government will respect your property rights when they want to move their people in?
And there will be climate refugees. What's going to happen when Peter Thiel and/or your neighbors want to machine gun them at the state line?
We cannot assume that as the stakes get higher, powerful people will respect law or custom when law or custom favor ordinary people.
posted by Frowner at 9:51 AM
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In a world where stock options for self driving cars are suddenly worthless, and the most valuable thing on the planet is clean water and food, billionaires will instantly find that they have no power.
Neighbor will help neighbor, economies will almost instantly become radically reorganized. The super rich in their bunkers will be an afterthought as everyone is scrambling to just hold on.
What the ultra wealthy don't understand, is that they are only powerful in our current system, once that system falls apart they are just like everyone else. A true evil genius would be dolling out just enough resources to the poor to keep them complacent while quietly sucking up most of the resources for themselves. But these people are idiots addicted to greed....so they just can't stop themselves from messing it all up.
Also you can't build a bunker that will protect you from the biosphere crashing...you just can't.
I have complete faith in humanity to not devolve into an all against all war if the climate were to fall apart, but that doesn't mean I want to do that.
The trick is getting folks to behave as if there is a catastrophe before the catastrophe is obvious.
posted by stilgar at 9:58 AM
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And scientifically, catastrophe is obvious.
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:07 AM
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I know that I'm being negative here, but these collapses are going to happen over time and they are going to be mediated by the state. It won't be that Elon Musk's money vanishes overnight; it will be that things get expensive then very expensive and will continue to be bought with money. There will be at least a fairly long period where things decline but people stick to existing power structures because they want to get fed and hope things will somehow go back to normal. The type of state collapse where we just somehow don't have to deal with the tech bros and the military and the cops isn't going to happen absent nuclear war or a pandemic with a CFR much greater than COVID or some other disaster that literally instantly shuts down travel and flows of material, or maybe some kind of giant solar storm that destroys the power system for the long term.
As long as the cops and the military have some kind of hope that things will go back to some variant of normal, even if that's just "me and mine are housed and fed and in return we police everyone else", they are going to be more or less loyal to the state and the rich. There may be factions but they won't be "the faction where we are egalitarian and help the people" versus the bad guys; it will be this warlord and that warlord.
The rich guys buying bunkers are stupid. Their whole thing is that they don't understand how crises play out, not that the crisis is going to happen the way they think it will except the hired help will turn on them.
We can't even unseat the Democratic Party because people keep hoping that they'll get us back to "normal" even though we've had a decade of proof that this isn't the case! A slow-roll crisis of any kind will present the same problem.
posted by Frowner at 11:30 AM
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NASA's mission to monitor melting ice in Greenland was called OMG for a reason.
posted by Headfullofair at 11:32 AM
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What the ultra wealthy don't understand, is that they are only powerful in our current system, once that system falls apart they are just like everyone else.
I think they do understand this, which is part of why they pay millions in lobbying, manipulation, media control, misdirection etc. to try desperately to keep the systems and perception in their favour for as long as they possibly can.
The mentally that comes with such unhealthy wealth, is to cling on to it and hoard as much more as they can get their claws into, at the ongoing cost to everyone else. They know their wealth is gained by taking it from everyone else, and they think they're just better people because of it, and therefore deserve it more.
Just keep on inflating that bubble for as long as they possibly can, and keep on increasing the next quarterly report, hoping the bubble never bursts.
Or if they can steal as much as they can before it breaks, they'll have what their mis-informed idea of a bunker is, to hunker down in for a few years, while they think they'll watch comfortably as the world burns, thinking they can just pop their head back up again after and carry on largely as before, just like in the movies.
posted by many-things at 12:17 PM
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I know that I'm being negative here, but these collapses are going to happen over time and they are going to be mediated by the state....
As long as the [in-group] have some kind of hope that things will go back to some variant of normal, even if that's just "me and mine are housed and fed and in return we police everyone else", they are going to be more or less loyal to the [status quo].
You're not being that negative. In most people's books, this indeed is the "hope" that keeps them going on as before - the belief that somehow, no matter what, they ("we") will manage, even if others don't. It's what keeps most people from risking what they've got to protest, to fight for change, to sacrifice current comfort for future security. Crises have to hit closer to home before they will step up.
We can't even unseat the Democratic Party because people keep hoping that they'll get us back to "normal" even though we've had a decade of proof that this isn't the case! A slow-roll crisis of any kind will present the same problem.
Well, exactly. A systemic failure means you need a better system. But system change is hard.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:25 PM
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(I believe that the upper crust already understand where the climate is headed, and rather than fix this, they are already hoarding wealth and buying up land in perceived "safe" and defensible locations, to be able to resist the hordes of displaced and desperate people who will be looking for help)
posted by Artful Codger
They know what is coming, and refuse to change their ways to try stop or mitigate it, in the complete delusion that they will inherit the world and rule it forever more.
I will certainly not be trying to dissuade the starving desperate hordes from tearing them from limb to limb should it get to that. Apart from any other reason I will be one of them.
Anywhere whose climate is not profoundly affected by AMOC collapse will immediately become a target for war and expropriation.
posted by Frowner
The great mistake the prepper movement has made is not understanding that when the shit hits the fan and order breaks down, the roaming desperate gangs will be targeting those with guns, ammo, food, water, and medical supplies. Which would be the preppers.
Isolated individuals, or even small communities, are going to be easy pickings.
In a world where stock options for self driving cars are suddenly worthless, and the most valuable thing on the planet is clean water and food, billionaires will instantly find that they have no power.
posted by stilgar
As somebody once said, civilisation is built on clean water and fertile land. All else is secondary to that.
I know that I'm being negative here, but these collapses are going to happen over time and they are going to be mediated by the state....
As long as the cops and the military have some kind of hope that things will go back to some variant of normal, even if that's just "me and mine are housed and fed and in return we police everyone else", they are going to be more or less loyal to the state and the rich. There may be factions but they won't be "the faction where we are egalitarian and help the people" versus the bad guys; it will be this warlord and that warlord.
posted by Frowner
This.
posted by Pouteria at 2:12 PM
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The great mistake the prepper movement has made is not understanding that when the shit hits the fan and order breaks down, the roaming desperate gangs will be targeting those with guns, ammo, food, water, and medical supplies. Which would be the preppers.
If we get to that stage, everyone is already dead. We have serious efforts to contain the habitat loss and game management, and we are still falling in species availability. What's going to happen when there is no government around to mandate that all the ducks in the world aren't killed in March 2075?
Guns don't last forever without huge amounts of maintenance. They'll be around until 2085. The bullets will probably be gone before then. Medicine gone before then. It's all fantasy, preppers are just playing the game with the infinite money glitch. Real reality will get in the way of the game.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:34 PM
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When you put it that way, a functioning society doesn't sound like such a terrible thing after all.
posted by mazola at 2:38 PM
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As somebody once said, civilisation is built on clean water and fertile land. All else is secondary to that.
I think you're underestimating the importance of NFTs.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:41 PM
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Another perspective on this here from Sharon Astyk - who has been right about this stuff consistently.
posted by mulberry at 3:37 PM
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Après moi, le déluge.
posted by betweenthebars at 3:46 PM
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Another perspective on this here from Sharon Astyk
When you said "another perspective" I was like oh no, I hope she doesn't minimize it--but she certainly did not. That was a very lucid explanation. Thanks for sharing that.
posted by mittens at 4:39 PM
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Ctrl+F "Australia" = no hits in either the OP or from Astyk
I guess we'll just keep trucking along over here? Being at the ass-end of the world has some advantages maybe
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:30 PM
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Don't feel left out, Australia will see an impact too!
posted by mittens at 6:34 PM
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Thank you!
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:49 PM
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The_Vegetables: “If we get to that stage, everyone is already dead.”
Every spent nuclear fuel cooling pool requires continuous electricity.
posted by ob1quixote at 12:55 PM
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