Iceland declares ocean-current instability a national security risk

It’s worth looking at this polar map to get a visual sense of the ramifications of this happening:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Circle#/media/File:Arct...

Notice the red line, marking where the average temperature of the warmest month is below 10°C. Notice how low it is on the west side of the Atlantic, in Nunavut and Labrador. It’s between 50° and 60° north.

Now imagine that line at those latitudes in Europe. You’d have Labrador-like conditions in the UK, a drastic situation indeed. Reykjavik would suddenly resemble Iqaluit.

Shutdown of northern Atlantic overturning after 2100 following deep mixing collapse in CMIP6 projections - 28 August 2025 - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/adfa3b

High-resolution ‘fingerprint’ images reveal a weakening Atlantic Ocean circulation (AMOC) - 12 Oct 2025 - https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/high-...

Physics-Based Indicators for the Onset of an AMOC Collapse Under Climate Change - 24 August 2025 -https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025JC02...

Link disambiguation: <https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/15/climate/iceland-warming-c...>

(Cited source by dagens.com, which is / may be AI-generated to boot.)

Ok, it's a national security risk. Now what? What are steps 2 and 3 in combating this existential risk? I see only 1 viable option: Start digging now and move the entire population underground.

Would current collapse make more than just Northern Europe colder? Or maybe they would be warmer?

They seem to suggest only certain northern countries would be affected because warm water stops flowing from the south.

So the southern waters would stay hotter right? Or what about across the Atlantic where the currents do the opposite (and make the winters so cold). Would Boston and New York get more temperate?

The IPCC rates a collapse before 2100 as “unlikely but not impossible.”

I wish other countries would take it this seriously.

Somewhat ironically, Iceland might be the country best suited by nature to handle the cold that would descend upon the Nordics if the gulf stream collapsed. At least they have plenty of volcanic heat they can use. My home country Sweden is not so lucky. Sure it's located a fair bit further south, but it's not clear that'll be enough to escape the cold. Yet the Swedish government seems wholly oblivious. Even the opposition is silent on this issue.

Kudos to the Icelandic! I wish you well in this endeavour!

Feel like I should mention the other end of this problem too: if the gulf stream stops heating the Nordics, it also stops bringing cold water from the Arctic to the gulf of Mexico. The heat waves will be absolutely epic. The Caribbeans, Florida and Mexico ought to be more worried too. In my armchair opinion, this will go way beyond nice beach days.

I'm glad they took this seriously and considered it important. Maybe the world will finally notice how we're destroying the planet and ourselves, and whether anyone thinks about their children and grandchildren who may live in a world destroyed by generations.

This is clearly getting more reporting on than on any domestic news outlets. This is the first I am hearing about this.

It is nice to see a country take it seriously of course. But, at some level I don’t love this type phrasing that has become generally accepted—it is a big deal, so we declare it a national security risk.

Everything is a national security risk when we look generally enough. Climate, education, economics, cultural diversity: failing in any of these fields makes the country weaker in some abstract way and that will impact national security down the road. “This impacts the general welfare and quality of life of the people” should be the highest category of urgent problem that needs to be fixed. A healthy, happy, productive populace can solve national security as a side effect.

Coincidentally at the moment the Canadian government has begun yet again pushing the idea of a new oil pipeline to serve asian markets with the justification being boosting the economy.

Remains depressing that somehow no one thinks for a second of the economic instability that will be induced by the climate change that that oil pipeline would contribute to...

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45906226

Nomen est omen...

Trump's instability is also a security risk.

Url changed from https://www.dagens.com/news/iceland-declares-ocean-current-i..., which points to this.

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See Bill Gates recent article on climate change alarmism.

My (paranoid) unpopular take: the AI boom we’re currently experiencing is a concerted effort by the billionaires to maintain operational agency (the ability to think and do at a massive scale) once society begins to collapse due to climate change.

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Thank you for the sane responses. I’m reconsidering how much I believe this.

So, if this happens, Iceland actually becomes Iceland...