A statistical early-warning analysis puts an AMOC collapse mid-century
Ditlevsen and Ditlevsen, in Nature Communications, applied early-warning statistics to a sea-surface-temperature-based reconstruction of AMOC strength and reported a central estimate for tipping of 2057 with a 95 per cent range of 2025 to 2095. The paper was widely reported and is also widely contested: the method assumes the reconstruction is a faithful proxy for overturning strength, early-warning indicators are prone to false positives, and the direct RAPID trend at 26.5°N is not consistent with a mid-century collapse.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) · natural phenomenon · Atlantic Ocean · not located
- RAPID-MOCHA-WBTS Array at 26.5°N · research programme · Subtropical North Atlantic — 26.5°N section · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent. This is the standing of the weakest source, not an average.
Warning of a forthcoming collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation
Early-warning statistics applied to a sea-surface-temperature-based AMOC reconstruction give a central tipping estimate of 2057 with a 95 per cent range of 2025–2095. Figures read via search summary and via commentary including a published critique noting that the reconstruction introduces large uncertainty; the paper was not fetched.
Nature Communications · 2023-07 · Partly verified
Ditlevsen, P. and Ditlevsen, S., Nat. Commun. 14, doi:10.1038/s41467-023-39810-w
Signal and Noise in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 26°N
The RAPID array at 26.5°N gives a mean AMOC of 17.0 Sv (s.d. 2.8 Sv) for April 2004 to January 2023 and a weakening of 1.0 [0.4–1.6] Sv per decade; the trend is not expected to exceed a signal-to-noise ratio of 2 until the 2040s. Read via search summary; the paper itself could not be fetched because the publisher domain is blocked to this run.
Geophysical Research Letters (American Geophysical Union) · 2025 · Partly verified
McCarthy, G. D. et al., Geophys. Res. Lett., 2025, doi:10.1029/2025GL115055 (open copy: nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/539195)
Recorded on Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)
- The RAPID array begins continuous AMOC measurement at 26.5°N
- Twenty-two years of continuous AMOC observation
- OSNAP moves the engine room out of the Labrador Sea
- IPCC AR6 assesses AMOC decline as very likely and collapse as unlikely this century
- A statistical early-warning analysis puts an AMOC collapse mid-century
- A physics-based early warning signal is proposed
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- A physics-based early warning signal is proposed · 2024-02
- IPCC AR6 assesses AMOC decline as very likely and collapse as unlikely this century · 2021
- OSNAP moves the engine room out of the Labrador Sea · 2019-02
- The RAPID array begins continuous AMOC measurement at 26.5°N · 2004-04
- Twenty-two years of continuous AMOC observation · 2004-04 – 2023-01