The Amoc

[sue4e3]

https://archive.ph/90V5N
Modelled 10 - 23 percent chance that we are already locked in to a shut down.With the earliest shut down occuring in 2060

[-misanthroptimist]

1. Well, what do you want us to do about it?

Are supposed to lower our profitability so future generations can...um, survive? That's commie talk!

Historians a thousand years from now will look back and equate us with the Easter Islanders (Gotta keep making those heads!) That is, if there are still people and historians thousands of years from now.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. I'm afraid I disagree

I grow increasingly pessimistic that there will be any, “historians a thousand years from now…” (unless, of course, it’s a group of self-maintaining “AI’s” in underground bunkers, with some sort of semi-perpetual power source, like geothermal energy perhaps.

As for the “Easter Island” narrative, it appears it is just another racist Eurocentric myth, about stupid, ignorant, primitive people, who, not knowing anything about science, tried desperately to please their gods.


https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/what-really-happened-easter-island

What Really Happened on Easter Island?
A Columbia study helps debunk an old theory about the island’s mysterious past.
BY KEVIN KRAJICK '76GS, '77JRN | FALL 2024

A millennium ago, a brave group of Polynesians sailed thousands of miles across the Pacific to settle one of the world’s most isolated places — a small, previously uninhabited island they named Rapa Nui. There they erected hundreds of “moai,” or gigantic stone statues of ancestral spirits, to protect them. In time, the island population ballooned to fifteen thousand souls or more, which proved to be unsustainable. They killed off the island’s seabirds, exhausted its soils, and chopped down its trees. Consequently, the civilization collapsed, and when Europeans arrived in 1722 and renamed the place Easter Island, only a few thousand people remained. At least that is the long-told story, recounted in academic papers and popular books like Jared Diamond’s 2005 Collapse.

A new study by Columbia archaeologist Dylan Davis challenges this narrative, claiming that the Rapa Nui people did not overpopulate the island but rather maintained a small and stable settlement right up until the Europeans arrived. The evidence: a comprehensive survey of the island’s farmland that indicates that its inhabitants grew only enough crops to feed four thousand people at any given time.

“This shows that the population could never have been as big as some of the earlier estimates suggested,” says Davis, who is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Columbia Climate School.

Davis and his colleagues were able to calculate the islanders’ agricultural productivity because their farming method — scattering broken rocks in fields to protect small plants from wind and ocean spray — left an enduring archaeological record. Mapping these “rock gardens” has long been regarded by scientists as a valid way to estimate Rapa Nui crop yields. But Davis and his colleagues developed a new, highly sophisticated analytic approach that produced vastly different results. First, members of the research team conducted detailed on-the-ground investigations of Easter Island’s rock gardens, painstakingly documenting their geological characteristics. Then they trained a series of machine-learning models to analyze satellite images of the island and detect any patches of land that had historically been used for rock gardening. Whereas simpler satellite-based analyses conducted by other groups had previously estimated that anywhere from 2 to 12 percent of the landscape had once been used for growing food, Davis’s team determined that less than one-half of 1 percent of the island, or about 188 acres, had been cultivated.

…

Dylan S. Davis et al. ,Island-wide characterization of agricultural production challenges the demographic collapse hypothesis for Rapa Nui (Easter Island).Sci. Adv.10,eado1459(2024).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.ado1459

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. What Really Happened on Easter Island? Ancient Sediments Rewrite the "Ecocide" Story

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2025/11/06/what-really-happened-on-easter-island-ancient-sediments-rewrite-the-ecocide-story/

Columbia Climate School
November 6, 2025

A new study led by researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory offers the clearest evidence yet that a centuries-long drought transformed life on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) beginning around the year 1550. The scientists collected sediment cores from two of the island’s few freshwater sources: Rano Aroi, a high-elevation wetland and Rano Kao, a crater lake. By analyzing the hydrogen isotope composition of plant leaf waxes within those cores, the team reconstructed a continuous, 800-year record of past rainfall trends, showing that annual precipitation declined and remained low for more than a century. The findings challenge long-held narratives of societal “collapse,” instead showing that Rapanui communities were resilient to profound climate stress. We spoke with lead author Redmond Stein about how the team uncovered this history and what it means for understanding the links between climate and culture.

…

Sediments in lakes and wetlands accumulate slowly over time and preserve lots of information about the climatic and environmental conditions under which they were deposited. Many scientists have previously studied sediments from Rapa Nui and have inferred past environmental changes by looking at things like elemental abundances, pollen and plant macrofossils, and changes in how quickly the sediment accumulated. These proxies are incredibly valuable, but they can often respond in complex ways to multiple climate and environmental variables—for example, temperature, precipitation, and changes in human land use. Conversely, we think leaf waxes on Rapa Nui are only recording information about local rainfall and aridity. By measuring the composition of leaf waxes preserved in wetland sediments— the ratio of “heavy” to “light” hydrogen in these waxes varies in tandem with the ratio of hydrogen in the water that plants absorb from rain—we were therefore able to put a rough estimate on the magnitude of drought that occurred on Rapa Nui in the 16th century for the first time.

…

The ecocide narrative suggests that people on Rapa Nui destroyed their island by way of deforestation, eventually leading to a period of societal conflict and population collapse prior to European contact in the 18th century. This story has been popularized as a parable for global overconsumption, presenting the people of Rapa Nui as architects of their own destruction. Although it’s true Rapa Nui was gradually deforested and that this represented a major ecological transition on the island, many studies have cast doubt on the ecocide hypothesis. Perhaps most importantly, there is no strong evidence of a demographic collapse prior to European arrival.

Our study and others now suggest that the people of Rapa Nui were dealing with drought beginning in the 16th century, which would have significantly impacted life on the already freshwater-poor island. Importantly, our hypothesis is not simply that regional climate changed, and that social and political hierarchies must have shifted in tandem, or that deforestation was unimportant, but rather that climate provides an important context for the human history of Rapa Nui. The exact mechanism by which a decrease in rainfall could have led to challenging circumstances is still unclear—for example, if this would have exacerbated soil erosion issues, led to a decline in drinking water, pushed people to find new freshwater resources, or impacted the ability of the vegetation to grow. Regardless, our study makes clear the history of Rapa Nui is much more nuanced than the ecocide narrative implies.

…

Stein, R., Curtin, L., Balascio, N.L. et al. Prolonged drought on Rapa Nui during the decline of megalithic monument construction. Commun Earth Environ 6, 865 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02801-4

[biophile]

2. Maybe sooner than 2060

The predictions for temperature rise and glacier depletion have been wrong. It’s happening faster than predicted. If the 2060 estimate is based on the older timeline, the breakdown of the AMOC might be accelerated as well.
😬

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Collapse of Atlantic Currents May Already Be 'Locked In'

Last edited Fri Jul 10, 2026, 02:31 PM - Edit history (1)

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/amoc-collapse-10-percent

E360 Digest
July 7, 2026

A vast system of Atlantic currents that delivers warmth to northern Europe is at risk of collapse, according to a growing body of research. The latest study to warn of its demise finds there is at least a 10 percent chance that a collapse may already be “locked in.”

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, ferries warm water from the tropics to northern Europe. As the water cools, it becomes more dense and drops to the ocean depths, where it flows south, back toward the tropics. But as oceans warm, those waters are not so cool, or so dense, as they once were, causing the system of ocean circulation to slow down. At the same time, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is introducing large amounts of fresh water, which is less dense than salty water, further slowing circulation.

By one estimate, if the AMOC were to collapse, its flow slowing to a near halt, temperatures in northern Europe would drop by 9 to 27 degrees F (5 to 15 degrees C).

The new modeling study found that even in a scenario where global emissions peaked in 2025 and the melting of the Greenland ice sheet raises sea levels by just 2 inches this century, there is a 10 percent chance that the AMOC will eventually collapse. In scenarios where the Greenland ice sheet unleashes more meltwater, the probability of collapse rises to 23 percent, according to the study, which has not yet undergone peer review.

…

René M. van Westen et al. ,Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course.Sci. Adv.10,eadk1189(2024).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adk1189