The Atlantic Ocean cooled down overnight, triggering superstorms in many places, and New York fell into a frozen state overnight... In the disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, the Earth turns on "glacial mode" overnight as a system of ocean currents called the Atlantic Ocean's amoc is completely shut down.
Scenes from the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" are based on the Futurist News Network
Although the plot of the movie is somewhat exaggerated, scientists recently pointed out that the sudden closure of the "Atlantic Warp Directional Circulation" in the movie may actually happen in the future.
According to foreign media reports on the 11th, a recently published study shows that climate change is causing the "Atlantic meridian reversal circulation" to gradually slow down and has approached the critical point. If this current system were completely shut down, much of North America and Europe would be plunged into a low-temperature glacial period of hundreds or even thousands of years, as in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow."
The "Atlantic Ocean WarpEdic Inverted Circulation" is one of Earth's major ocean current systems, and scientists liken it to a "conveyor belt." Its main function is to transport warm currents from the equatorial tropics to Europe and Greenland, and warm waters flow into Western Europe, creating a warm and humid climate. Meanwhile, after reaching the area around the UK, the warm current cools and sinks to the bottom of the Labrador and Nordic Seas. Cold water then turns around and winds its way down the ocean floor to the southern ocean of Antarctica.
In a paper published last week in the journal Nature, climatologist Nicholas Pohrs at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany pointed out that there is a growing possibility that the "Atlantic warped circulation" will suddenly shut down. Currently, it is approaching a "crash" tipping point. Once it closes, the east coast of North America and much of Europe will fall into a low-temperature glacial period.
The "Atlantic Meridian Flip Circulation" brings warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic (the red part), where the water cools and sinks, and then returns south (the blue part) according to Insider magazine
Pouls explained in an interview that if warming causes large amounts of freshwater from melting polar glaciers to enter the ocean, this current system will experience "sudden weakening" and become unstable. This is because the flow rate of the "Atlantic Ocean Meridian Flip Circulation" depends on the delicate balance of salt and fresh water. Brine is dense, so it sinks easily. But as Greenland's ice sheet and glaciers continue to melt, more and more freshwater is injected into the saltwater surface of the ocean current, making it less dense and less likely to sink, thus blocking the current cycle.
The collapse of the "Atlantic warped circulation" will lead to lower temperatures in Europe, "the further north you go, the more effective the cooling will be," Pouls said. At the same time, there will be a "chain reaction" in the regions that benefit from this circulation. For example, sea levels will rise on the east coast of the United States, while parts of Central and West Africa will experience persistent droughts.
A "landmark" climate report released this week by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also notes that by 2100, the "Atlantic Ocean's warped circulation" is likely to experience a sudden collapse. The reason for this may have been triggered by the unexpected additional melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
The collapse of the "Atlantic WarpEdir flip circulation" will cause temperatures to drop in Europe, Pols explains, and "the further north you go, the more effective the cooling will be." At the same time, there will be a "chain reaction" in regions that benefit from this circulation, for example, sea levels will rise on the east coast of the United States, while parts of Central and West Africa will experience persistent droughts.
By studying ice cores from Earth's last ice age, scientists have found that amoc alternates between two states — a strong "on" state, or current operating speed, and a weaker "off" state, or a circulation slowdown.
Francisco Mucitiero, a geographer at the University of Cambridge, noted that "shutting down amoc is the easiest and most effective way to disrupt the climate system." When we talk about rapid climate change, 95% of it is related to amoc. The major changes in amoc led to the coldest event on record. ”
The last shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean's inverted circulation occurred during a recent ice age, when a huge glacial lake burst and caused large amounts of freshwater to flow into the Atlantic. And this latest study is undoubtedly a warning that the earth's environment is moving in the wrong direction, and human beings may already be living in a disaster movie environment.
Still, Pohrs added that the cooling effect with the Atlantic Warped Circulation "will take decades" and won't freeze instantaneously as depicted in the film, but it's still a worrying trend. "If the Atlantic warped circulation does collapse, it will be very difficult to get it back to normal, and it usually takes hundreds or even thousands of years for the Atlantic warped circulation to return to a strong pattern."
Red Star News reporter Xu Huan
Edited by Guo Yu
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