This is the future that some climate scientists fear. While much of the world is set to grow hotter as a result of the climate crisis, the UK could soon face a different fate. Off the coast of Greenland, and just off the west coast of Ireland, sea temperatures are plummeting. It is creating an area of water that climate scientists are formally dubbing the “cold blob”.
Bill McGuire, a professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London (UCL), believes that Arctic temperatures could soon be our new reality. “At the moment, global heating is – as you would expect – making the UK hotter not colder, and there is no sign of any falling temperature trend,” he says.
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Read MoreThis keeps the UK’s temperatures mild. “Without it, our climate would be more akin to the much colder Labrador in north-eastern Canada, [a region known for its reindeer], which is at about the same latitude.”
The AMOC is failing because of the “cold blob,” which has formed thanks to the rapid melting of Greenland’s ice sheets. “It is significant because it is freshening the northern waters of the AMOC, thereby reducing their density,” explains McGuire. “This is preventing AMOC waters from sinking and returning to the tropics, thereby slowing the whole circulation.”
He isn’t alone in his apathy. Almost half of climate scientists polled in a recent survey think the world will heat up by at least 3°C by 2100. “This would be quite possibly civilisation-busting,” he adds, soberly.
A University of Exeter paper published in 2020 estimated that in Britain’s new climate, only 7 per cent of UK land would be suitable for arable farming, compared with the current 32 per cent. “Managing this looks like rationing, restricted civil liberties and the rest. That may well need to be in place for centuries.”
A 2024 paper by researchers at the University of Copenhagen concluded that the AMOC isn’t likely to slow gradually, but may suddenly collapse entirely. They reported that this could happen as early as next year or, more likely, by the 2050s.
If the UK and the rest of Northern Europe do fall into an Arctic winter, the rest of the world will also be impacted. “Global repercussions will be colossal, probably crashing the economy and bringing global society to its knees,” says McGuire. “The AMOC shutdown will cause the northward flowing currents to back up, rapidly pushing up sea levels along the eastern coasts of Canada and the US.”
It’s a grim glimpse of the future. But, McGuire reminds me, it is our fault. “This is entirely the result of global heating caused by human activities,” he says. “Between 1994 and 2017 alone, melting ice across the planet – including from the Greenland ice sheet – added 28 trillion tonnes of water to the oceans. It is critical that monitoring of the AMOC is maintained, even increased.”
Bill McGuire’s new book The Fate of the World: How Our Future is Written in the Past is out next year.
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