Visualisation of currents in the Atlantic Ocean
NASA
The 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow may have taken some serious artistic licence with climate science, but it got one thing right. Climate change may indeed cause a collapse in global ocean currents, with devastating consequences.
When the Hollywood blockbuster was made, researchers knew relatively little about the state of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), an ocean system that transports warm water and nutrients around the Atlantic Ocean.
But there were concerns that melting ice…