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How the AMOC collapse could affect us in NZ

I hate winter.

Normally, winter around these parts is cold and damp. That significantly reduces the amount of walking I can do and, as regular readers know, walking is one of the main ways I manage my Parkinson's symptoms.

This year however, things are a little different, weather-wise that is.

So far I've still been throwing on my shorts and a teeshirt then striding out the front door to the supermarket and back, a 5Km round-trip. Sometimes I'll do this twice a day if I can.

Despite the fact we're almost a third the way through winter, it's really not feeling very winter-like.

Should we be worried?

Meanwhile, in the Northern hemisphere, Europe and parts of the UK are sweltering under their second heatwave in almost as many weeks.

Temperatures are forecast to soar well into the 40s over the coming days and health warnings have already been issued across a wide area.

Could this be global warming?

When we have an occasional exceptionally warm summer or winter in isolation that's "weather" but now that these events are becoming the norm I think it's impossible for even the most hard-core denier to claim that the climate is definitely changing.

Around these parts, bouts of heavy rainfall are beoming more frequent also -- this is another predicted effect of climate change.

Is this change due to human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels?

That's the debate which has raged for quite sometime. The undeniable reality is that the answer is "yes", at least to some degree.

Personally, based on the evidence I've seen, I don't think that the changes we're seeing are entirely down to human activity but our propensity to fill the air with CO2 and other greenhouse gasses sure isn't helping any.

If we now accept that change is happening, I wonder if we're really doing enough to plan for the longer-term effect that those changes will have on the habitability of our planet.

Some areas are going to be come so hot as to be uninhabitable, others, surprisingly, may become too cold.

Huge swathes of Northern Europe could experience a new ice-age thanks to a predicted shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) - or the Gulf Stream as it's sometimes referred to. This is the flow of warm water from equatorial regions up to Northern Europe which brings much-needed wamth to the area, particularly during winter months.

There were predictions a couple of years ago that the AMOC could have already failed by now. Fortunately, those fears appear to have been significantly overstated. However, it remains highly probably that this event will occur and it may do so within our lifetimes although this is as contentious as the subject of climate change itself.

If the AMOC does collapse we could see a mass exodus of people from the affected regions to warmer climates and a significantly increased level of stress on the planet's food resources.

It surprises me that we appear to have widespread acknowledgement of the risk but very little in the way of planning and preparation going on.

Why not?

Why is the insurance industry the only entity that really seems to have grasped the severity of what may be about to happen -- as witnessed by the dramatic increase in policy prices over the past decade or so?

Meanwhile we are safely tucked away on some islands in a temperate zone that's unlikely to see much in the way of temperature change for a long time, due largely to the huge mass of water that surrounds us. However, we should perhaps be reminded that all those people who are forced to flee their own regions due to climate change will be seeking somewhere new to call home.

Is New Zealand prepared for the influx of new faces that could soon be knocking at our door? If not then maybe we should start preparing now, while there's still time.

Carpe Diem folks!

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