AMOC is of course the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current, and a new study summarized by Guardian suggests we are on a path to its tipping point.

Climate models recently indicated that a collapse before 2100 was unlikely but the new analysis examined models that were run for longer, to 2300 and 2500. These show the tipping point that makes an Amoc shutdown inevitable is likely to be passed within a few decades, but that the collapse itself may not happen until 50 to 100 years later.

The research found that if carbon emissions continued to rise, 70% of the model runs led to collapse, while an intermediate level of emissions resulted in collapse in 37% of the models. Even in the case of low future emissions, an Amoc shutdown happened in 25% of the models.

Scientists have warned previously that Amoc collapse must be avoided “at all costs”. It would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50cm to already rising sea levels.

I admit that when I am sort of lazily thinking about this, I don’t distinguish in my mind between the tipping point and the collapse. But they are different, as this article illustrates. The tipping point is the point of no return, but because there is a time lag between the tipping point and the consequences, the tipping point is going to be called in hindsight rather than in real time. And this is very bad for our increasingly short-attention-span species and civilization.