A study by scientists from Copenhagen showed that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), the ocean current system that includes the Gulf Stream, will stop between 2025 and 2095, more likely in the 2050s.
This will lead to harsher winters in Europe and increased heat and drought in the summer, reports Financial Times.
It is noted that an earlier study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicated that a shutdown of the AMOC is unlikely to happen until the end of the century.
Scientists have found that the stoppage of currents is likely to happen much earlier due to climate change. This will lead to further changes in weather patterns around the world. The probability of such a disaster is 95%.
Professors Peter and Suzanne Ditlevsen explained that the shutdown of the AMOC would lead to significant cooling in the Northern Hemisphere. Because of this, winters will become harsher, and summers will be dry. In addition, the heat will intensify in the south, and even tropical precipitation will change.
Scientists emphasized that this is one of the most terrible "tipping points" for the planet or irreversible changes caused by global warming.
"I was surprised that we found that the tipping point would come so soon, and that we could constrain it so strongly to the next 70 years," said Peter Ditlevsen.
"It doesn't look like we can change that unless there's a huge shift in political opinion around the world, including China and the US," Suzanne Ditlevsen stressed.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that a study by Stockholm University, Sweden, showed that the current rate of warming will create a risk for the Earth crossing six dangerous climate tipping points.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, the study of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) showed that by the beginning of the 2030s the world will exceed the limit of warming by 1.5°C, and by 2100 it will reach 3.2 °C.
