The current that warms Europe will weaken by 51% before the end of the century. And Spain, according to experts, is already beginning to notice

“The 5% chance just became 50%.” This quote from Stefan Rahmstorf, the world’s leading expert on the collapse of the AMOC, describes the change it introduces the study just published by the University of BordeauxIt’s this April 15th.

But the story goes beyond the number: it is the latest installment of the great climate debate of the decade. A debate that, whoever wins, we are all losing.

What exactly is AMOC and why do we care? The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is the North Atlantic branch of the thermohaline circulation. Since the sun does not heat the sea equally everywhere and freshwater flows reach the ocean at very specific points, this is the basic mechanism by which the oceans balance differences in temperature and salinity.

The AMOC is a good example of this regulation. After all, as explained from AEMETit is an “Atlantic basin-scale north-south ocean flow that begins with cold sea water sinking to the bottom off Greenland, subsequently flowing south, and being replaced by warmer water flowing at the surface from the south, transferring heat from the tropics to the east coast of North America and the west coast of Europe.”

Therefore, it is a key mechanism and if it stops, as studies began to say a decade ago, the problems for Europe would be enormous.

Huge? “Without it, Western Europe and eastern North America would cool significantly, with a host of potential adverse effects,” said Sánchez Laulhé. We talk about a “widespread cooling throughout the North Atlantic and northern hemisphere in general” that would collapse the temperature in Europe would drop several degrees and cause a “strengthening of winter storms, with more and more powerful explosive cyclogenesis” and a “greater proportion of precipitation falling in the form of snow throughout Europe.”

However, scientists do not fully agree. In 2021, the IPCC said the AMOC was “unlikely” to collapse. In 2023, the Ditlevsens not only said that it was a probable scenario, but that they set the first date for the collapse. In 2024, 44 signatories They asked to take the problem seriously. But in January 2025 Terhaar, Vogt and Foukal said which, in short, had not weakened since 1063.

Now, the University of Bordeaux states that the AMOC will weaken by around 51% by the end of the century with a confidence level of 90%, under the intermediate emissions scenario.

What can already be seen. French researchers they are right in which the most recognizable observational signal of the weakening of the AMOC is the “cold spot” of the subpolar Atlantic south of Greenland. In the midst of climate change, “the only point on the planet that has cooled in the last century.”

However, we are also not clear what that really means. And there is the key.

So will Europe freeze? Probably, but that’s not what’s interesting. Throughout the history of the Atlantic it has been passed many times. The question is whether it will be soon, if it will be our fault, if we can avoid it and what consequences it will have. Be that as it may, Spain will not be the most affected, but it will be. It is being.

Stefan Rahmstorf, for example, said last year at the Autonomous University of Madrid that “the slowdown of the AMOC is already having impacts in Spain.” You just have to know how to read the signs.

Image | Xataka

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