Scientists have warned that Antarctic currents could collapse and cause a climate “catastrophe”.

The new study, published in the journal Nature, also warns that the slowdown could reduce the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The report describes how Earth’s network of ocean currents is driven in part by the downward movement of dense, cold salt water toward the seafloor near Antarctica.

But as fresh water from the ice sheet melts, sea water becomes less salty and less dense, and the movement downward slows.

These deep ocean currents, or coup Scientists say that (the inversion), it remained relatively stable for thousands of years in the northern and southern hemispheres, but they are now affected by climate warming.

Our model shows that if global carbon emissions continue at the current rate, coup Antarctica will shrink by more than 40% over the next 30 years – and on a trajectory that appears set for collapse,” said Matthew England, an oceanographer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who led the study.

He added, “If the oceans had lungs, this would be one of them.”

Adele Morrison, who contributed to the report, explained that as ocean circulation slowed, surface water quickly reached its carbon-absorbing capacity, not being replaced by carbon-unsaturated water from greater depths.

A 2018 Atlas study shows that the circulation system in the Atlantic Ocean is weaker than it has been in more than 1,000 years – and has changed dramatically over the past 150 years.

The paper suggested that changes in the Atlantic Meridian Circulation (Amoc) could cool the ocean and northwestern Europe, affecting deep-sea ecosystems.

A fictional depiction of the AMOC outage is featured in the film Climatic Disasters the day after tomorrow (2004).

But, according to Morrison, there is a slowdown in coup In the south it will have a greater impact on marine ecosystems and Antarctica itself.

“Hey coup It brings nutrients that sink in when organisms die…to replenish the global ecosystem and fisheries with nutrients,” she tells the BBC.

“The other big impact it could have is feedback on how much Antarctica will melt in the future. This sets the stage for warmer waters that could cause more melting, which would be an additional feedback, leading to more melting of water in the ocean and less More trading speed,” he adds.

The scientists spent 35 million computational hours over two years producing their models, which suggests that circulation of deep waters in Antarctica could be declining at twice the rate of decline in the North Atlantic.

“[É] It’s impressive to see this happening so quickly, said climate scientist Alan Meeks of Oregon State University in the US, a co-author of the latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“It seems to be starting now. This is major news,” he told the Reuters news agency.

The impact of Antarctic meltwater on ocean currents has not yet been considered in IPCC climate change models, but it would be “significant,” according to Matthew England, an author of the study.