While world leaders convene in Brazil at COP30 to discuss the global climate crisis, Iceland has declared the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to be an existential threat to the northern island nation’s national security. As one of the many island nations around the world that will be more immediately affected by climate change, Iceland believes that they cannot wait for long-term climate research to deliver definitive answers, and must begin preparing for such a catastrophic event immediately.
“It is a direct threat to our national resilience and security,” stated Johann Pall Johannsson, Iceland’s Climate Minister. “(This) is the first time a specific climate-related phenomenon has been formally brought before the National Security Council as a potential existential threat.”
As an integral component of the ocean currents that course across the Atlantic Ocean, the AMOC is crucial in transporting the warm Caribbean waters that moderate the climate of northern Europe northwest across the Atlantic; along the way, it also imparts vital warmth to Iceland, of which would otherwise live up to its name if it wasn’t for the presence of this climate-stabilizing current.
In the face of such a threat, the ministries of Iceland’s government will be formulating responses to the climate disruptions that could be expected in the event that the AMOC substantially slows or collapses. This will be facilitated by research into what the appropriate responses should be, covering a wide host of sectors, including energy and food security, infrastructure resilience and international transportation.
A similar call to action was called for in an open letter sent to Nordic policymakers by forty-four of the world’s leading climate scientists in October 2024, warning that the collapse of the AMOC could plunge northwestern Europe into an irreversible deep freeze.
Such an event could also trigger a domino effect that would impact other parts of the planet; for instance seasonal monsoons that typically deliver rain to the tropics would see the weather phenomenon shift to the south, causing monsoons in the Amazon, West Africa, India and East Asia to be shorter, potentially leading to drought conditions across wide swaths of these continents.
In October, the Nordic Council of Ministers hosted a Nordic Tipping Week workshop where 60 climate experts assessed how societies might be impacted by such a climate disruption; the participants are currently in the process of finalizing the recommendations they formulated during the event.
“There is tons of research on the likelihood of when exactly things are going to happen,” explained Finnish Meteorological Institute oceanographer Aleksi Nummelin. “There is much less on what is the actual societal impact.”
“Sea ice could affect marine transport; extreme weather could severely affect our capabilities to maintain any agriculture and fisheries, which are central to our economy and food systems,” Johannsson pointed out. “We cannot afford to wait for definitive, long-term research before acting.”