Overview
- Peer‑reviewed research in Science Advances estimates a 43% to 58% AMOC slowdown by 2100, about 60% stronger than the average of climate models had projected.
- Researchers constrained models with observed ocean temperature and salinity, finding that earlier projections were biased by overly salty and warm surface assumptions that kept the current unrealistically strong.
- Independent measurements from four moorings along the western North Atlantic, in place since 2004, show the current has weakened at multiple latitudes over the past two decades.
- Freshwater from rapid Greenland ice melt is diluting the North Atlantic, which makes surface water less dense, weakens sinking near Greenland, and slows the heat‑carrying circulation that shapes regional climate.
- A collapse is not a consensus forecast, as a 2025 Nature study argued Southern Ocean upwelling could avert a shutdown this century, but several experts now judge the risk of crossing a tipping point within decades to be higher.