Climate scientists count the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation among the biggest tipping points on the way to a planetary climate disaster. The Atlantic Ocean current acts like a conveyor belt carrying warm tropical surface water north and cooler, heavier deeper water south.
However, building upon previous work, He says researchers are revising their understanding of the relationship between AMOC and freshwater from melting polar ice. Instead, while Earth's temperatures cooled after this abrupt warming before rising again to plateau at new highs for the last 10,000 years, the 2009 model couldn't keep pace. The simulated warming over the northern regions of the planet didn't match the increase in temperatures seen in geological archives of climate, like ice cores., He and Oregon State University paleoclimatologist Peter Clark describe a new model simulation that matches the warmth of the last 10,000 years.
"Without the freshwater coming in making the AMOC slow down in the model, we get a simulation with much better, lasting agreement with the temperature data from the climate record," He says."The important result is that the AMOC appears to be less sensitive to freshwater forcing than has long been thought, according to both the data and model."models that evaluate how the AMOC will respond to future increases of freshwater from ice melt.
UWMadison NatureClimate you can't shut down energy flow.. but it can be re-routed (alter the path a bit).. by melting ice. that is something that needs 'attention'!