Ocean system that moves heat gets closer to collapse, which could cause weather chaos, study says

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer

An abrupt shutdown of Atlantic Ocean currents that could put large parts of Europe in a deep freeze is looking a bit more likely and closer than before as a new complex computer simulation finds a “cliff-like” tipping point looming in the future. A study in Friday’s Science Advances finds a long-feared nightmare scenario, triggered by Greenland’s ice sheet melting from global warming, still is at least decades away if not longer, but maybe not the centuries that it once seemed. A collapse of the current would change weather worldwide because it means a shutdown of one of key the climate and ocean forces of the planet.