LAUREN FRAYER, HOST:
Europe is the fastest-warming continent, and in 2026, there are big concerns about climate change driving more extreme weather and health impacts for those of us who live here. This week, an arctic cold front swept the region, and I decided to plunge into January quite literally.
(SOUNDBITE OF CRUNCHING FOOTSTEPS)
FRAYER: It's 8:30 in the morning. The grass is crunchy with frost. A bunch of us are streaming down to this pond. It's about 35 degrees Fahrenheit.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
FRAYER: The birds are cheering us on.
BRIAN MELI: Hey.
FRAYER: Happy New Year.
MELI: You, too.
LUCY NICHOLSON: Happy New Year.
JOHN TOTH: How are you?
(SOUNDBITE OF CRUNCHING FOOTSTEPS)
FRAYER: OK. I'm on this little dock. It's actually icy.
MELI: Ready? Go, go, go, go, go. Ooh. Ah.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)
MELI: Oh. Oh.
FRAYER: All right. I'm the last one. My friends have gone in. There's no turning back. OK. Here I go. Trying to keep the microphone out of water.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER RIPPLING)
FRAYER: Oh. Oh. Oh.
MELI: Yeah. You've got to be careful. Ah. It's freakingly (ph) freezing.
FRAYER: Oh, wow. That was cold (laughter) and exhilarating. Why do we put ourselves through this every New Year's Day?
TOTH: Ah.
MELI: I think it's 'cause it's there. It's the challenge.
(LAUGHTER)
TOTH: It's for the renewal. It's the renewal of the - it's the new year.
MELI: Oh, yeah. That's a good one.
TOTH: And it's exhilarating. It's a good way to sort of embrace the...
FRAYER: (Shivering).
TOTH: ...Embrace the winter.
FRAYER: With me there were my friends, Brian Meli (ph), and Lucy Nicholson (ph) and my partner, John Toth (ph). That harsh cold could be a taste of one potential future for us because of a climate change paradox. Climate change is warming the planet, but it may also be destabilizing the ocean current that keeps the British Isles comparatively balmy. And if disrupted, it could leave it colder here in London. There is a huge amount of scientific debate over this, but some researchers and governments have grown more concerned. To learn more, we're joined by Laurie Laybourn. He's the director of the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative in Southwest England. Welcome.
LAURIE LAYBOURN: Very good to be with you.
FRAYER: Iceland recently classified the potential collapse of this major current system in the Atlantic as a national security risk. What is Iceland's concern, and how likely is it to come to pass?
LAYBOURN: Iceland's concern is an existential concern. As anyone on Iceland will tell you, the reason why there is life on that very remote, very northerly island is because of these ocean currents that bring this heat and other wet and weather patterns north, which has enabled Iceland to have life. It's the same with Britain. It's the same with Western Europe. And if that conveyor were to shut down, then it would be - it's not an exaggeration to say catastrophic for Iceland.
FRAYER: What happens if the path of that current suddenly changes?
LAYBOURN: So it would make things much colder. And the reason why is because that current, which technically is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, is like a massive conveyor belt moving heat northwards from the equator, from the tropics. And then it releases that heat when it reaches the northern parts of the Atlantic Ocean. And that's one of the main reasons why in England we have vineyards at roughly the same latitude that Canada has polar bears. So if that conveyor belt bringing heat northwards were to shut down, things will get much colder.
FRAYER: There's an acronym, as well.
LAYBOURN: Yes. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, A-M-O-C, or AMOC, for short.
FRAYER: And what does the declaration from Iceland's government mean? I mean, what can governments do?
LAYBOURN: It means firstly that Iceland is taking this very seriously. And note there that it's coded it as a national security concern, not a scientific - something of scientific interest or even necessarily related to the existing politics of climate change. It's saying, no, hang on a minute - this climate problem is now getting so severe, it is a fundamental national security concern like, you know, the threat from hostile nations and like pandemics. The second thing is that it's basically signaling, I think, to other countries to say, look, this is something we all need to take collectively seriously, and our declaration of this can be used as a mechanism to begin to have some conversations about better understanding this and maybe doing some planning around it.
FRAYER: There's a significant scientific debate on how likely this is. What's the debate? Who are the naysayers? What's fueling it?
LAYBOURN: The debate is over the vast complexity of this conveyor belt. It's very difficult to model. And so some are saying, look, the uncertainties are so high here, we can't even really say something reliable about what could happen in the future. Now, we should be approaching climate change like any good risk assessor, like a risk assessor working for a company building a plane, or a risk assessor for a hospital or something like that. Those risk assessors - they consider the very worst. They want to make sure they anticipate everything, even if it doesn't happen.
FRAYER: You're my climate risk manager. I'm worried about AMOC collapse, but I'm also worried about a lot of other climate-related issues. What do I prioritize? How urgent are these things?
LAYBOURN: The way to deal with that is to identify what we could call the no regrets strategies - the things that would work in every single case across that spectrum. Now, one is very obvious that the world has to reduce carbon emissions much quicker so that we close off some of these really horrendous things like AMOC collapse, right?
FRAYER: That's Laurie Laybourn. He's director of the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative. Thanks for being here.
LAYBOURN: My pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF PINEGROVE SONG, "NEED 2") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
