Study - Antarctic Circumpolar Current On Track For 20% Slowdown By 2050 Under High-Emission Scenario

[hatrack]

In a high emissions future, the world’s strongest ocean current could slow down by 20% by 2050, further accelerating Antarctic ice sheet melting and sea level rise, an Australian-led study has found.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current – a clockwise current more than four times stronger than the Gulf Stream that links the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans – plays a critical role in the climate system by influencing the uptake of heat and carbon dioxide in the ocean and preventing warmer waters from reaching Antarctica.

Using Australia’s fastest supercomputer and climate simulator, Gadi, located at Access National Research Infrastructure in Canberra, the researchers used climate models to analyse the impact of changing temperature, ice melting and wind conditions on the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

The results, published in Environmental Research Letters, revealed a clear link between meltwater from Antarctic ice shelves and circumpolar current slowdown, and comes less than a week after another paper anticipated a weakening in vital Atlantic Ocean currents. What they found suggested a “substantial reconfiguration of Southern Ocean dynamics”, with “far-reaching impacts on global climate patterns, oceanic heat distribution, and marine ecosystems”.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/03/antarctic-circumpolar-current-slow-down-ice-melting-climate

[highplainsdem]

1. Well, the Republicans are certainly doing all they can to create that scenario.