The Day After Tomorrow? A climate disaster could occur at ANY time in the next 6,000 years, scientists warn

It’s the film that left us all wary of disastrous and abrupt climate change.

But The Day After Tomorrow is probably not when we’re going to experience apocalyptic weather events, according to a study.

Researchers argue that it’s almost impossible to predict the timing of climate tipping points – and that catastrophe could strike at any time in the next 6,000 years.

A team from the Technical University of Munich and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research provided the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) as an example.

This system circulates water from north to south and back in a long cycle within the Atlantic Ocean, carrying warm water from the tropics northwards.

Climate models suggest the AMOC will weaken over the 21st century due to increases in greenhouse gases and melting ice.

If the system collapsed the Northern Hemisphere would get colder, causing temperatures in Europe to drop dramatically.

Wet seasons in the Amazon rainforest would be reversed to dry seasons, and in coastal cities the sea would rise even faster.

Previous predictions from historical data suggest a collapse could occur between 2025 and 2095.

However, the new study revealed that uncertainties are so large that these predictions are not reliable.

Using different data sets and analysis, tipping times for the AMOC ranged from 2050 to 8065 – a 6,000-year window which isn’t particularly useful, the researchers said.

Writing in the journal Science Advances they said the timing of other climate tipping points – such as the melting of the polar ice sheets or the collapse of tropical rainforests – are also too uncertain.

This is because there is too much still unknown about the underlying physical mechanisms of climate change, a lack of direct observations of the climate system, and incomplete history data, they explained.

Lead author Maya Ben-Yami said: ‘Our research is both a wake-up call and a cautionary tale.

Climate models suggest the AMOC will weaken over the 21st century due to increases in greenhouse gases and melting ice. If the system collapsed the Northern Hemisphere would get colder, causing temperatures in Europe to drop dramatically 

‘There are things we still can’t predict, and we need to invest in better data and a more in-depth understanding of the systems in question.

‘The stakes are too high to rely on shaky predictions.’

While the study shows we cannot reliably predict tipping events, the possibility of such events cannot be ruled out either, the team said.

They also stressed that statistical methods are still very good at telling us which parts of the climate have become more unstable.

‘We still need to do everything we can to reduce our impact on the climate, first and foremost by cutting greenhouse gas emissions,’ co-author Niklas Boers said.

‘Even if we can’t predict tipping times, the probability for key Earth system components to tip still increases with every tenth of a degree of warming.’