Revision 1

Accepted · first revision · record

Title: Is the AMOC already weakening toward collapse today?
Plain: Some studies claim statistical warning signs that the overturning circulation is losing stability, while direct measurements since 2004 are too short to show a clear trend. The question is whether a collapse is near.
Precise: Using the RAPID array (since 2004), other transport arrays and proxy reconstructions (sea-surface temperature fingerprints, sediment grain size), determine whether the AMOC has declined since the mid-20th century beyond natural variability and whether early-warning indicators (rising variance and autocorrelation, freshwater-transport sign at 34 S) are physically valid for this system. An answer is a detected or rejected trend and stability-loss signal with stated confidence.
Settled by: Multidecadal direct transport records combined with validated proxy indices showing a significant forced decline and a physically interpretable loss of resilience.
Kind: well-posed
Answer type: yes-no
References: (empty)
Literature status: contested
Status note: Ditlevsen and Ditlevsen 2023 (Nature Communications) extrapolated a collapse between 2025 and 2095 from a sea-surface-temperature index, while RAPID transports since 2004 and the air-sea heat-flux reconstruction of Terhaar et al. 2025 (Nature Communications) show no significant decline, so the claim remains disputed.
Posed since: (empty)