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A physics-based early warning signal is proposed

Van Westen, Kliphuis and Dijkstra published in Science Advances a physics-based indicator — the freshwater transport by the overturning at the southern boundary of the Atlantic — which in a long climate-model simulation turns negative well before a collapse. Applied to observational reanalyses, the indicator suggests the present-day AMOC is on a trajectory towards tipping. Subsequent work by the same group has continued to refine indicators and to identify where an observing system would best detect the onset.

Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.

Subjects

Evidence

Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.

Recorded on Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)

  1. The factory ship Lancing takes a stern slipway south
  2. The Antarctic blue whale catch reaches its all-time peak
  3. CCAMLR is agreed at Canberra
  4. The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is adopted
  5. A long-term decline in krill density is linked to winter sea ice
  6. The RAPID array begins continuous AMOC measurement at 26.5°N
  7. Twenty-two years of continuous AMOC observation
  8. Dedicated Antarctic Blue Whale Project voyages
  9. CCAMLR adopts the Ross Sea marine protected area
  10. OSNAP moves the engine room out of the Labrador Sea
  11. Baleen whale consumption is re-measured, and the krill paradox sharpens
  12. IPCC AR6 assesses AMOC decline as very likely and collapse as unlikely this century
  13. The only published Antarctic blue whale satellite tracks are released as data
  14. Antarctic sea ice reaches a record low, a year after the previous one
  15. Antarctic meltwater is projected to slow the abyssal cell
  16. A statistical early-warning analysis puts an AMOC collapse mid-century
  17. A physics-based early warning signal is proposed

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