Key Atlantic current could collapse soon, 'impacting the entire world for centuries to come,'

[Metaphorical]

26. They have some

The AMOC is pretty much responsible for the relatively temperate climate that the Atlantic experiences, as well as being a major driver of weather systems. It serves as something of a thermostat - when the temperature gets too high, glaciers melt and sea ice evaporates, causing the AMOC to slow down. This in turn causes arctic air to descend farther south in winter, bringing with it fresh snow and ice with high albedos, cooling the planet. We call these ice ages, and they can last for as much as a couple of millennia, depending upon many factors. This is why I'm not that worried about global warming long term - we exceed a specific tipping point and we're back into a cooling period. This is an anomaly - when the continents were last together (around 150 million years ago) we had massive circulatory systems that were fairly simple, with the coasts periodically seeing hurricanes with 250-300 mph winds, temperatures 8 to 10 degrees Celsius above current levels, and inland areas that were completely arid. So it could always be worse.

Mind you, an ice age would likely push human civilization back to the bronze age within a couple hundred years.