“This is civilisation changing stuff”: Is AMOC the hardest climate story to tell?

Europe plunged into a deep freeze. Life as we know it upended. The 2004 film ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ gave a generation of terrified journalists an impossible task: how do you communicate the counter intuitive threat of dramatically colder winters caused by global warming? David Shukman (davidshukman.com) was one of them.

This week, Tom Rivett-Carnac is joined by the veteran BBC Science Editor and author of the upcoming ‘The Response’, to explore the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC: the vast system of currents that helps regulate weather, rainfall and temperature across the Atlantic and far beyond. Recent research suggests it may be weakening faster than previously understood - with potentially profound consequences for food systems, ecosystems and global stability.

They speak with Dr Willem Huiskamp (pik-potsdam.de/members/huiskamp) of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who explains what AMOC does, and what a much weaker system could mean in practice. Then Tom and David reflect on the harder questions. How do we communicate a risk this vast and uncertain without paralysing people or losing them entirely? Are we socially and politically prepared for -50C winters in parts of Europe? And are we even capable of responding to a threat that may unfold over decades rather than across news cycles and political terms?

Learn More:
🌊 Discover more about the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/amoc.html) and why scientists are watching it closely
🔎 Read the latest paper (science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx4298) referenced in this episode, which projects an approximate 50% weakening of AMOC by the end of the century
📘 Check out David’s book, The Response (penguin.co.uk/books/469146/the-response-by-shu…), which will be published by Witness Books on 7th May

🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes onSpeakPipe (speakpipe.com/OutrageandOptimism)

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Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Edited by: Miles Martignoni
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

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