Multiple equilibria in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation

The 'Gulf Stream' will not collapse in 2025: What the alarmist headlines got wrong

Retrieved on: 
Friday, August 4, 2023
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“Be very worried: Gulf Stream collapse could spark global chaos by 2025” announced the New York Post.

Key Points: 
  • “Be very worried: Gulf Stream collapse could spark global chaos by 2025” announced the New York Post.
  • This latest alarmist rhetoric provides a textbook example of how not to communicate climate science.
  • These headlines do nothing to raise public awareness, let alone influence public policy to support climate solutions.

We see the world we describe

    • It is well known that climate anxiety is fuelled by media messaging about the looming climate crisis.
    • This is causing many to simply shut down and give up — believing we are all doomed and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
    • This is also not the first time such headlines have emerged.

The currents are not collapsing (anytime soon)

    • The latest series of alarmist headlines may not have fixated on an impending ice age, but they still suggest the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation could collapse by 2025.
    • This is an outrageous claim at best and a completely irresponsible pronouncement at worst.
    • The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been assessing the likelihood of a cessation of deep-water formation in the North Atlantic for decades.
    • Other assessments, including the National Academy of Sciences Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises, published in 2013, also reached similar conclusions.

Understanding climate optimism

    • Ritchie persuasively argued that more people located in the green “optimistic and changeable” box are what is needed to advance climate solutions.
    • More importantly, rather than instilling a sense of optimism that global warming is a solvable problem, the extreme behaviour (fear mongering or civil disobedience) of the “pessimistic changeable” group (such as many within the Extinction Rebellion movement), often does nothing more than drive the public towards the “pessimistic not changeable” group.

A responsibility to communicate, responsibly

    • This is only amplified in situations where scientists make statements where creative licence is taken with speculative possibilities.
    • Climate scientists have agency in the advancement of climate solutions, and with that agency comes a responsibility to avoid sensationalism.