North Atlantic Current

The North Atlantic Current, together with the Gulf Stream, have a long-lived reputation for having a considerable warming influence on European climate.

[5] As of 2022, the trend of strengthened Labrador Sea convection appears to hold, and is associated with observed increases in marine primary production.

[6] Yet, a 150-year dataset suggests that even this recently strengthened convection is anomalously weak compared to its baseline state.

It is considered unlikely to recover even if the temperature is returned to a lower level, making it an example of a climate tipping point.

This would result in rapid cooling, with implications for economic sectors, agriculture industry, water resources and energy management in Western Europe and the East Coast of the United States.

As the result, the study estimated the risk of an abrupt cooling event over Europe caused by the collapse of the current at 36.4%, which is lower than the 45.5% chance estimated by the previous generation of models [10] In 2022, a paper suggested that previous disruption of subpolar gyre was connected to the Little Ice Age.

[11] A 2022 Science Magazine review study on climate tipping points noted that in the scenarios where this convection collapses, it is most likely to be triggered by 1.8 degrees of global warming.

The North Atlantic Current is the first leg in the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre
Modelled 21st century warming under the "intermediate" climate change scenario (top). The potential collapse of the subpolar gyre in this scenario (middle). The collapse of the entire AMOC (bottom).