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Why you need to know what is happening to the AMOC
If the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) stops or slows, my climate will run amok, and so may yours.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) may be slowing. Why does this matter?
A failure of the AMOC would adversely affect the climate of the UK and Europe and parts of North America (with a knock-on effect elsewhere), disrupting agriculture and causing mass migration and food shortages, affecting national security. Sea level rise will also be involved. We don’t know when it will happen, but it has been slowing down for years.
Background
The global thermohaline circulation is a ‘conveyor belt’ of water continuously circulating around the oceans of the world, mixing the waters. The portion of the current in the Atlantic Ocean is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The portion of the AMOC which flows from the Gulf of Mexico, through the Straits of Florida and up the U.S. East Coast is called the Gulf Stream. It then veers east near North Carolina and moves toward Northwest Europe, where it is called the North Atlantic Current, though in Britain I think we tend to still call it the Gulf Stream as it passes us, keeping us relatively warm, even though London is north of Calgary, Canada.