The Independent claims in “Vital Atlantic current likely to collapse with catastrophic consequences, scientists warn” that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is significantly more likely to shut down within decades, plunging Europe into extreme winters and triggering global disruption. This is wrong-headed speculation. The article relies heavily on extreme computer model simulations built on high-emissions assumptions, ignoring the observational record of the AMOC, which shows little or no evidence of an imminent collapse.
The article asserts that AMOC “could pass the shutdown tipping point within the next couple of decades,” and that a slowdown of 42 to 58 percent by 2100 is “almost certain to end in collapse.” That strong claim is based solely on modeling exercises, not direct measurements of a system in free fall.
Even the article acknowledges that analyzing the AMOC, seen in the figure below, is “an incredibly complex process” with “widely varying results” ranging from no drop at all to a massive slowdown. That admission is key. Published science over the past decade has pointed in three different directions: some studies projecting collapse, others indicating relative stability, and still others suggesting potential strengthening in certain regions depending on wind-driven upwelling and Southern Ocean dynamics.
In fact, the article itself references a recent Nature study showing that wind-driven upwelling in the Southern Ocean can prevent total collapse this century, even under extreme scenarios. It also notes that 34 climate models analyzed showed weakening of 20 to 81 percent over 90 years, yet none predicted a complete collapse. That is hardly evidence of a collapse being in the offing.
The core issue is model dependence. The study highlighted by The Independent blends limited real-world observations with climate models run under high-end emissions pathways and large freshwater influx scenarios. These are stress tests. They are not forecasts. They assume strong anthropogenic (human caused) forcing and then examine how models behave. The high-end emission scenarios have increasingly been rejected, even by those who argue humans are causing climate change, as being unrealistic and likely impossible.
Climate models are useful tools, but they are not reality. Their reliability in simulating ocean circulation over century timescales remains limited. Small changes in parameterization, freshwater flux, wind forcing, or vertical mixing can dramatically alter projected AMOC strength. That is why scientific literature shows divergence rather than convergence on the idea of a collapsing AMOC.
The observational record does not show a collapse. Direct measurements of AMOC strength from the RAPID array at 26.5°N, which has been operating since 2004, show variability but no clear long-term downward trend indicating imminent shutdown. Paleo proxies used in that study suggest multidecadal variability has always occurred.
The tipping-point rhetoric also deserves scrutiny. “Collapse” implies an abrupt and irreversible shutdown. But the article acknowledges that even studies showing significant weakening do not necessarily predict a full switch-off. Weakening is not collapse. Variability is not collapse. Modeling a threshold is not observing one.
This is not the first time dramatic AMOC headlines have circulated. Over the past decade, media coverage has oscillated between declaring imminent collapse, reporting stabilization, and highlighting studies showing wind-driven mechanisms that sustain circulation. Climate Realism has debunked more than a dozen such stories in the past few years.
Ocean circulation depends on temperature gradients, salinity, wind forcing, freshwater input, and deep-water formation processes. It has fluctuated throughout the Holocene without industrial CO2 forcing. Abrupt events in the paleoclimate record occurred under vastly different boundary conditions.
What The Independent presents is a single model-derived study framed as the most “realistic outcome.” It selects the most alarming end of a wide range of outcomes and presents it as the likely future. Based on realistic assessments of the emission scenarios driving the model and real world data, that presentation of the scenario as realistic is false.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report states that while AMOC weakening is likely happening under current high emissions scenarios, there is low confidence in a collapse before 2100. That cautious assessment stands in contrast to headlines suggesting shutdown within decades.
Extreme simulations produce extreme headlines, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and none have been presented here. Ocean circulation science is unsettled. Models disagree. Observations show variability. Published studies over the past decade have projected collapse, steady-state behavior, and even strengthening under certain dynamics.
The Independent declaring a looming catastrophe based on one modeling study doesn’t represent balanced, informed science reporting. Rather, it is acting as a promoter for an alarming, unlikely climate narrative, which may attract readers but simultaneously does a disservice to them and sound science itself.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Originally Posted at ClimateREALISM
We just had “AMOC To Collapse–Part 98” so this is Part 99.
I eagerly await Part 100. It ought to be spectacular.
It’ll be Party Time.
Amoc went Amok.
The most beautiful likely,almost certain climate catastrophy.
2x worse than expected.
I am still waiting w my Climate Alarm bell and banner until warmer weather hit the headlines and the alarm season starts properly. I keep asking the UK Met Office when the season officially starts. I am SO ready to discuss this w my friends and family and online. It’ll likely happen when we get good days above 20 degrees C. You know, heatwave territory and ‘record highs’! Last week there was a bit of that in southeast UK.
Warm weather in Uk?
You mean 5 C and tons of rain.
I see this heatwave coming and alarm bell ringing by August if you are lucky.
Iirc you English used to built your pipes on the outside of your houses until the 60 ies,
but can no longer do so because the warming makes pipes burst as result of freezing.
Anthony, you have just been promoted to a “guest blogger”.
Congratulations.
The Observer paper had an article on it too. As did much of the press.
Most of the usual suspects had articles on this garbage. This demonstrates the complete lack of understanding of the climate and total refusal to do any research by these “journalists”.
There are 3 fundamentals that the modelers and journalists seem to be missing: 1 warm water rises, 2 cold water sinks, and 3 the earth rotates. Most of the warming occurs in a band around the equator where the water is mostly moving with the equator at around 1000 mph and most of the cooling is in pools around the poles where the water motion is mostly stationary with respect to the earth , at one revolution per day. There is a huge amount of kinetic energy exchanged as as these conditions evolve. This creates ocean currents. The pittance of a minor amount of temperature change abruptly stopping this in a catastrophic way is needs much more analysis than a few discredited computer models.
It’s not a lack of understanding. It’s willful propaganda. This is on purpose.
From the WEF
“It also notes that 34 climate models analyzed showed weakening of 20 to 81 percent over 90 years, yet none predicted a complete collapse.” Although obviously corrected here who teaches these mathematical (adjective)? It’s a geriatric privilege to complain about younger ones, but how does this relate to the historical amounts of such available material?
Who better to spin nonsense predictions than those who best understand the fleeting nature of stories.
They understand propaganda. Repeat the lie, endlessly and vigorously. Many believe it, as we see.
The useful tools are the modellers.
There must be something Freudian behind this obsession with catastrophic warming leading to apocalyptic cooling due to the irreversible disruption of ocean currents. I can clearly picture a leaking bathtub, for lack of a drain plug, perched on top of a drifting iceberg in an ocean of lava, with hot and cold water taps out of whack, and a yellow plastic duck letting out mocking quacks. And then a sudden awakening at three in the morning, in damp, foul-smelling sheets.
It’s since then that we’re supposed to pee in the shower, ban baths to save the planet, and prohibit the production of petroleum-derived objects, all to bring about the collapse of the plastic bath duck industry.
Since they debunked the Bible, they must create a new Revelations book.
Climate suits the purpose.
There is an observationally based study recently published of the AMOC (no models in sight).
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-atlantic-current-decade-decline-deep.html
“A paper published in the journal Science Advances is adding to the growing body of research showing that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is weakening. In this new study, instead of relying mainly on computer models, scientists used two decades of direct ocean measurements to confirm the decline.”
I see the word ‘weakening’. I assume that ‘collapse’ is a modeled linear trajectory?
Like: temperatures are rising leading to catastrophic climate change.
Do you see where im going w this?
And the eastern boundary is generally compensatory. The money shot of the article is “…robust, long-term evidence from multilatitudinal in situ observations remains limited.”
They refer to the strongest linear trend being evident at latitude 16.5N, identified as T16. Looking at the plot of the data, in their Fig S1, it appears to show more of a step change around 2009-2011. Before that the trend appears, if anything, slightly in the opposite direction; and after that the trend appears flat.
And what should it be doing? Strengthening? Somehow that would be a catastrophe and the fault of CO2 as well. Do you expect everything to be the same always and forever?
B*llsh!t. Any analysis of time series data (or just about any data) requires a model. You’re being disingenuous (to put it mildly) in your claim of “no models in sight.”
Read the whole paper before you comment.
Sheesh.
The assumption being that if the AMOC is changing, then climate change must be the reason.
The idea that things change for many reasons is rejected.
Yep. They may have causality backwards.
As usual, it is the headline that counts. Part of the grift. Experts say…etc.
Alarmoscience is on the brink of collapse.
So the real answer is: We have no effing idea.
Some folks are definitely finding the current collapsing-
Victorians transitioning from gas exacerbates growing problem of undervoltage
The Independent is a hard left cesspit of fearmongering trash.