By Stu Winters
13-07-2025: A major ocean current in the Southern Hemisphere has reversed direction for the first time in recorded history, in what climatologists are calling a “catastrophic” tipping point in the global climate system.
The development, which was confirmed by Spanish marine scientists at El Institute de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) in Barcelona, has triggered widespread alarm among climate scientists due to its potential to accelerate global warming and destabilize weather patterns worldwide.
“The stunning reversal of ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere confirms the global climate system has entered a catastrophic phase,” said climate activist Ben See in a post on social media.
The collapse – sometimes referred to as AMOC, shorthand for Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation — involves the deep overturning circulation in the South Atlantic, a part of the global conveyor belt of ocean currents which typically pulls cold, nutrient-rich water up from the ocean floor and drives planetary heat distribution.
The study, published on July 2, identifies a collapse and reversal of the Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC) in the South Atlantic.
This current system plays a crucial role in regulating global temperatures and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide in the deep ocean. The data show that the flow of the DWBC current reversed from northward to southward for several consecutive months in 2023 — the first such event in 30 years of continuous monitoring.
“This is an unprecedented observation and a potential game-changer,” said physicist and lead author Dr Marilena Oltmanns, who warned the changes could “alter the Southern Ocean’s capacity to sequester heat and carbon.”
According to oceanographers and climate scientists, the reversal is likely linked to an ongoing weakening of the Antarctic overturning circulation, a deep-ocean process driven by the formation of cold, salty water masses near Antarctica. That system has slowed by up to 40% since the late 1990s, and the new findings suggest it may be destabilizing regional ocean dynamics more rapidly than expected.
There has been a lot of speculation that the whole AMOC (otherwise known as the Gulf Stream), could come to a halt. The AMOC brings warm water to Europe from the equator, and when it stops flowing that will lead to a mini-ice age in Europe with winter temperatures dropping by 10-30C. While scientists are 98% certain that the AMOC will stop flowing by 2100, recent studies suggest that the event could come as soon as this year, or at least in the next few decades.
The ICM report warns that the reversal of the DWBC could also unleash, in a positive feedback loop, vast amounts of carbon dioxide currently trapped in deep-ocean reservoirs. The reversal will undermine the ocean’s role as a carbon sink, which currently absorbs about 25% of all anthropogenic CO₂ emissions.
“This could double current atmospheric CO₂ concentrations by releasing carbon that has been stored in the deep ocean for centuries,” the report said. Such a release would likely render mitigation strategies based on gradual reductions obsolete.
“The planet is sending us increasingly clear signals that we are crossing critical thresholds,” the ICM warned, characterizing the event as a shift from “chronic climate stress” to “acute systemic breakdown.”
The reversal threatens to weaken the ocean’s crucial role as a carbon sink — one of the Earth’s key natural defences against rising atmospheric CO₂ — and will also dramatically disrupt global weather systems, sea level patterns, and marine ecosystems.
The event coincides with an unprecedented marine heatwave in the Mediterranean. A Spanish metrological buoy recorded a sea temperature of 31C on July 4 – as hot as a lukewarm bath. The northwestern Mediterranean Sea has recorded a temperature anomaly of +6.21°C above the 1982–2015 average, part of a pattern of record marine heatwaves which have a direct bearing on terrestrial weather and further destabilize climate patterns.
The current reversal is the first to occur in modern times due to anthropogenic climate change. Researchers now warn of increased risk of abrupt changes in weather patterns and are calling for immediate global attention and a reassessment of climate adaptation strategies in light of what may be a new and more volatile climate regime.
The reversal of the current will bring cold water up from the deep in which is trapped CO₂. That means the reversal, “could double current atmospheric CO₂ concentrations by releasing carbon that has been stored in the deep ocean for centuries,” the El Institute de Ciencies del Mar said.
“The planet is sending us increasingly clear signals that we are crossing critical thresholds,” the Institute added.
To place this alarming data in a larger context, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, the global average sea surface temperature reached 20.96°C in June, the highest for the month since records began.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has shut down a major federal website and related links which hosted congressionally mandated national climate assessments, which were the U.S. government’s preeminent reports on climate change impacts, risks and responses thus limiting access to scientific knowledge and public awareness of anthropogenic climate destabilization.
As the capitalist mode of production is driving humanity and the planet toward critical tipping points, the only “solution” offered by the reactionary Trump Administration amounts to a form of digital book burning.
Never has it been of more vital importance to overthrow the capitalist profit system and replace it with a system which prioritizes human and planetary ecology and health, that is, socialism.
Red Fire 