For decades, mainstream media outlets have asserted that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is on the verge of collapse, bringing catastrophic consequences to the planet. This is false. Recent research indicates that climate change has not altered the Atlantic Ocean current, despite repeated claims by the media and some supposed experts to the contrary.
The 2004 Hollywood disaster film The Day After Tomorrow showed an AMOC shutdown plunging the world into an instant Ice Age. The story was loosely based on some scientists predictions that the AMOC and the regional ocean currents that feed into it, were slowing dangerously down. The mainstream media hyped those unverified assertions, setting up the science fiction blockbuster for success.
Mainstream media outlets have periodically pushed the same doomsday narrative, warning that the AMOC is slowing, weakening, or collapsing, with dire predictions of climate chaos for each condition.
For example:
- In 2015, The Washington Post ran the headline: “The Ocean’s Circulation Hasn’t Been This Sluggish in 1,000 Years. That’s Bad News.”
- In 2021, NBC News warned: “A Crucial Ocean Circulation System Is Weakening. Scientists Say It’s Another Sign of a Warming Planet.”
- In 2023, CNN stoked panic with: “A Major Ocean Current Is at Risk of Collapse. Scientists Say It Would Be a Climate Disaster.”
Yet, as Climate Realism has repeatedly pointed out, science debunks these claims (see here). These assertions of a declining AMOC and other large scale ocean currents which drive weather patterns and impact climate change are largely based the projections of speculative climate models rather than on real-world observations or verifiable research.
Two recent peer-reviewed studies, one from February 2025 and one from January 2025, both published in Nature, confirms what many climate realists have pointed out for years—the AMOC has remained stable for at least 60 years, displaying no significant slowing trend. Going further, the scholars who conducted the research concluded that there is no credible evidence to suggest that such a collapse is imminent or even likely in the foreseeable future. Commenting on the climate models which have forecast a collapse of the AMOC, the scientists carrying out the research concluded that climate models are flawed and overstate the risks — models’ simulations have failed to match actual measured trends.
So, where is the wall-to-wall media coverage of this reassuring news? Where are the CNN specials, the New York Times op-eds, and the breathless Guardian headlines announcing that disaster is not in the offing? They are nowhere to be found.
Now that we have two peer-reviewed studies that have determined the AMOC has been stable for at least six decades and is extremely unlikely to collapse in the foreseeable furute, the silence from mainstream media outlets is deafening. The same journalists who eagerly ran worst-case scenario stories are now unwilling to report findings that contradict their previous fearmongering.
The findings of the recent studies confirm what previous research cited at Climate Realism and Climate at a Glance: Ocean Currents have shown, ocean currents are complex, influenced by a variety of natural cycles, and not as fragile as alarmist narratives suggest.
While the mainstream media constantly admonishes the public and politicians to “follow the science,” they conveniently ignore scientific research when it cast doubt upon the narrative that climate change causes everything bad.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is not collapsing, is not slowing catastrophically, and is not about to trigger an Ice Age. The latest scientific research confirms what observational data has shown for decades: AMOC variations are natural, and there is no impending crisis. That’s the good news journalists and news outlets claiming to be presenters of the truth should be reporting, but we at Climate Realism won’t be holding our breaths for it.
