'Weathered' on PBS asks 'Is This Crucial Ocean Current About to COLLAPSE?'

Thanks to Infidel753 linking to them, last week's most popular posts all featured videos from Weathered on PBS or PBS Terra, so I'm returning to the well for Weathered: Earth's Extremes on PBS asking Is This Crucial Ocean Current About to COLLAPSE?

The AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) plays a crucial role in regulating global climate by transferring heat from the warm tropics to the North Atlantic, helping to stabilize temperatures worldwide. However, scientists have raised concerns that it may be slowing down—or even on the verge of shutting down—which could lead to severe consequences, such as more extreme weather patterns and rising sea levels.

The answer is that the AMOC has already weakened, making the prediction of its collapse more credible. That leads to the rest of my response, which I'm recycling from Susan Lozier at TED asks 'Is Climate Change Slowing Down the Ocean?' and PBS Terra asks 'Is Earth's Largest Heat Transfer Really Shutting Down?'

This is not a new concern, as Al Gore described it in "An Inconvenient Truth." I asked about it specifically in the worksheet I used in one of my classes, which I reproduced in Hot (not): a cold blast from the past along with an answer.

What is the likely effect of the melting of the Greenland ice cap on ocean circulation and global climate?

In the movie, the idea is that the release of meltwater from a large glacial lake diluted the Gulf Stream, causing the water to become less dense and unable to sink to the bottom of the ocean off Greenland, jamming up the global thermohaline circulation and sending the planet back into an ice age for another thousand years. An analogous melt of water from the Greenland icecap, which is beginning to happen, would do much the same thing, slowing ocean circulation and cooling Europe. Both of those are indeed taking place.

The movie came out seventeen years ago and I wrote the above more than ten years ago. It's not as if we weren't warned.

Speaking of which, PBS Terra listed the Greenland ice sheet and the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) last September in PBS Terra asks 'What Will Earth Look Like When These 6 Tipping Points Hit?' I'm reusing my reaction from that post as well.

Watching all that reminds me that none of these threats are new, so my reaction isn't either.

First, welcome to the 400 ppm world. Second, are you scared enough by climate change? My readers should be.

Hey, I'm an environmentalist; I recycle.

I have one more climate change video to share. Stay tuned to see if I use it tomorrow before I go full holiday for Thanksgiving.