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The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) acts like a huge conveyor belt that delivers warm water from the equator to the poles and brings cold water back southward to the equator. In the process, the AMOC heats up Europe and cools the tropics, providing milder and more stable climate conditions in both regions. The AMOC has been circulating since the end of the last ice age some 12,000 years ago, though scientists have found evidence that earlier collapses of the system set off sudden temperature extremes. In recent years, the AMOC has shown signs that it is weakening, leading the most recent IPCC report to conclude that it is on track to collapse sometime after the dawn of the 22nd century. Now, physicist Peter Ditlevsen and mathematician Susanne Ditlevsen, who are siblings and researchers at the University of Copenhagen, have presented new evidence that the AMOC may collapse decades sooner. The pair “predict with high confidence the tipping to happen as soon as mid-century,” with a 95 percent chance of occurring anytime between 2025 to 2095, assuming a “business-as-usual” future in which greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, according to a study published on Tuesday in Nature Communications.
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