I think it’s just a matter of when at this point.
Not enough is known about these systems to accurately predict anything. But due to the nature of what we’ve been doing to the planet and continue to do … I think stuff like this will happen if not within our lifetime but in the next generation or two.
The damage we’ve caused so far will take hundreds or thousands of years to bring it back to what it was before we started all this.
One of the recent climate papers on the topic (from accredited researchers but not yet peer reviewed) estimates “The earliest year (mean 10% percentile level) for a potential AMOC collapse is 2037 and the latest year (mean 90% percentile level) is 2064” and “Applying the same procedure to SODA and GLORYS results in 91% and 92% collapse probabilities before 2050, respectively” - which if proven to be even remotely true is not just concerning but actually apocalyptical - it means mainland Europe might begin seeing +40 summers and -20 winters in the next 20-30 years - which makes it practically impossible to develop infrastructure in that timeframe that can survive such harsh temperature swings.
For anyone that has kids or is under 30 and plans on trying to survive - as preppy as it might sound - I would recommend starting to think about underground dwellings and controlled environment hydroponic gardening asap.
Or move to a comfortable elevation near the equator in order to avoid such harsh temperature swings the easy way.
You know the “best” part? As far as I can tell, each new study tends to refine the timeline estimate sooner (and not just because new studies are in the future compared to older ones). Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the collapse happens within a decade.
