Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 10 September (HL634) stating that they are monitoring ongoing research into the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, what assessment they have made of recent research papers that suggest collapse is a possibility this century such as 'Probability Estimates of a 21st Century AMOC Collapse' by Smolders, van Westen and Dijkstra.

Recent papers on the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) provide a range of views on the likelihood, extent and timing of potential changes in AMOC. They provide useful evidence on this rapidly evolving area of science; they do not represent a significant update to the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report is the most comprehensive assessment of climate science to date and determined that there is a high likelihood of the AMOC weakening in the 21st century, but an abrupt collapse is unlikely (although not impossible) in this timeframe.