Collapse of key ocean current would cause carbon feedback
The seas around Antarctica might begin releasing CO2 Nigel Killeen/Getty Images Global warming caused by humanity’s carbon emissions has been slowing the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a system of currents including the Gulf Stream that warms Europe. If the AMOC collapsed entirely, it could release massive amounts of carbon from the deep Southern Ocean into the atmosphere, a feedback that would warm the Earth even more. Previous research has shown that AMOC shutdown could cause colder winters in Europe, disrupt monsoons in Africa and Asia, and increase global temperatures. But new computer modelling has shown it would also emit as much as 640 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide near Antarctica, heating the planet by an additional 0.2°C. “AMOC collapse could trigger (in the) Southern Ocean big mixing and release the carbon stored in the deep water,” says Da Nian at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who led the study. “It’s a quite new result.” “The key message is that a very bad occurrence… could have even worse implications than we …
