Evidence lacking for a pending collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

Abstract: A catastrophic collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) will have serious impacts on global climate. Based on eight AMOC proxies across the Atlantic basin Boers claimed to have found Early Warning Signals (EWS) that point to its imminent collapse. Here we show that common to all eight of Boers' AMOC proxies are artificial rises in variance as observational coverage increased, giving false alarms; we demonstrate how climate models without EWS could be made to yield apparent EWS of a tipping point when sampled according to the increasing historical observational coverage. In addition, Boers' salinity proxy was based on our work; this and another of his sub polar AMOC proxy have their signs reversed erroneously. The narrative that AMOC is declining towards collapse cannot be supported when the sign is corrected.