BRUSSELS — The European Union’s climate chief has warned that the Gulf Stream could collapse in a few decades after Dutch scientists found key ocean currents are weakening faster than thought.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the system that forms part of the Gulf Stream — an Atlantic Ocean current that keeps Europe from becoming frigid — could start shutting down in the 2060s as a result of climate change, according to a study by Utrecht University researchers published this week. 

European Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra described the findings in a social media post as a “wake-up call.” 

The Gulf Stream, he noted, “carries warm tropical waters north, keeping Northern Europe’s winters far milder than regions on the same latitude, like Canada. This new study says that the Gulf Stream could collapse in our lifetime.” 

Shutdown of the AMOC would see temperatures in Europe plummet even as global warming marches on. This would also reduce rainfall and likely bring even drier summers, with devastating consequences for agriculture.

Earlier this month, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera — in charge of the EU’s overarching green policy — suggested that the AMOC should be “added to the list of national security acronyms in Europe” given the severe impact of a shutdown. 

The Dutch study, which analyses 25 different climate models, found that under a moderate emissions scenario — meaning a rise in global temperatures of around 2.7 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels this century — the AMOC could start collapsing from 2063.

The planet has already warmed to 1.3 C, and is on track to warm to 2.7 C under governments’ current climate plans. Under a high-emissions scenario of warming above 4 C, which is considered unlikely, the shutdown could occur as early as 2055, they found. 

Previous studies said a collapse was unlikely to happen this century. 

What are the chances?

Sybren Drijfhout, chair of ocean and earth science at the University of Southampton and a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, said the Utrecht study was “solid.” 

Drijfhout, who was not involved in the Utrecht paper, published a separate study Thursday that reached a similar conclusion about the AMOC reaching a tipping point this century, entering a decline before shutting down after the year 2100. 

According to this study, the unlikely high-emissions scenario has a 70 percent chance of leading to such an AMOC collapse, while the moderate scenario — the 2.7 C increase the planet is on track for at the moment — sets out a 37 percent chance. 

Yet even a low-emissions scenario in line with the 2015 Paris climate accord targets that limit warming to below 2 C, the researchers write, give a 25 percent chance of a shutdown. 

“As far as current models suggest, we conclude that the risk of a northern AMOC shutdown is greater than previously thought,” Drijfhout and his colleagues wrote.

In his post, Hoekstra expressed frustration about climate becoming less of a priority in European politics in recent years despite the threat posed by global warming. 

“There’s a sense out there that climate change has taken a backseat because we’re so busy dealing with [other] pressing concerns,” he wrote.

“Progress takes time … it’s not linear,” he continued, and insisted that “there’ll be moments when attention wanes. So a big thanks to these scientists for giving us another serious climate wake-up call.”