Do you also know that vague “Oh dear, it’s the climate crisis” feeling? At least it hits me more often when heat records are broken in the summer or photos of green ski slopes make the rounds in the winter. However, the fact that this uneasy feeling spreads through me even when it is unusually cold – like here in Munich right now – is new.
Of course, particularly cold days in winter are nothing unusual – the weather fluctuates and the climate crisis is not the cause of every extreme. But since I spent more than two months researching an Atlantic current that brings heat to Europe with Vera Schroeder and Alex Rühle, I have had to think about the climate crisis even in extreme cold.
Because this Atlantic Overturning Circulation, also called AMOC, which gives us such a beautiful, mild climate, is in danger in the long term. And that is due to man-made global warming. As with so many things that threaten to get out of balance on our planet.
It has long been known that the AMOC is central to the climate, not just the European one. And also that global warming could weaken or even stop them. Climate changes would be so drastic that we humans would have difficulty adapting to them. The (scientifically not particularly valuable) disaster film “The Day After Tomorrow”, which made the AMOC famous in the media, is already 20 years old. But there are still many unanswered questions in research and some studies come to very different forecasts. You can read about exactly how the AMOC works and what has been discovered so far about its possible development in our storytelling.
From what we know, the AMOC is still running and global warming is currently making our winters milder and wetter. The widespread flooding of the past few weeks fits this trend, as my colleague Theresa Palm has pointed out. And 2023 was the warmest year ever – not just in Germany. The data overview by my colleague Sören Müller-Hansen shows this very impressively.
One could despair at all of these forecasts, trends and tipping point scenarios. But you can also see it as an incentive to focus more on the things that are now necessary to actually achieve climate neutrality and justice. At least that’s what I’ve planned for this new year.
(This text comes from the weekly Newsletter Climate Friday you here free of charge can order.)