Is The Latest Atlantic Current ‘Collapse’ Paper Scientific Fraud?

A portion of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) [image credit: R. Curry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution @ Wikipedia]

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It’s like whack-a-mole with these endless AMOC ‘studies’ which play computer games, using the dead-in-the-water RCP 8.5 emissions conjecture, to claim the Atlantic ocean is soon to go into some sort of apocalyptic mode if humans don’t renounce their fuel-burning ways. No amount of contrary evidence or research shuts them down. Needless to say the hungry media latches on to this sort of guff every time.
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Summary: Weaponized peer review is driving climate alarmist narratives and funding, using debunked scenarios to push fanciful claims like a collapsing AMOC.
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As a published scientist with papers in prestigious journals like PNAS, Science Advances, and others, I’m intimately familiar with the peer-review process, says Dr. Matthew Wielicki @ Climate Chane Dispatch.

It’s far from perfect—plagued by biases, delays, and occasional gatekeeping—but it remains the gold standard for disseminating expert, evidence-based information in a timely and accurate manner.

That said, when peer review gets weaponized to push a narrative, it crosses into dangerous territory.

We’ve seen this before in the climate science community, as I detailed in my piece “Manufacturing Consensus” and as exposed in the infamous Climategate emails from 2009.
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A brand-new paper in Environmental Research Letters (ERL), titled “Shutdown of northern Atlantic overturning after 2100 following deep mixing collapse in CMIP6 projections” by Sybren Drijfhout and colleagues, claims the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), often sensationalized as the “ocean conveyor belt” that could trigger a climate catastrophe, is on track for a shutdown after 2100 under high-emission scenarios. [Talkshop comment: such scenarios were written off as impossible junk several years ago, but reviewers still accept their use].

The paper relies heavily on computer model projections (CMIP6) and paints a dire picture of collapsing deep ocean mixing, leading to extreme cooling in Europe and global disruptions.

But here’s the red flag: it mis-cites a key 2024 paper on the Florida Current (a major AMOC component) that actually shows long-term stability, and it completely omits two bombshell papers published this year in the journal Nature that directly contradict the idea of an imminent AMOC collapse.

This isn’t just sloppy science… It’s hard to imagine experienced authors, reviewers, and editors overlooking such recent, high-profile work by accident.

As someone who’s navigated peer review countless times, I can tell you: omitting or misrepresenting directly relevant papers from the same year, especially ones that torpedo your core claims, would never pass muster with my academic advisors, coauthors, reviewers, or editors.

It smacks of deliberate cherry-picking, ignoring any data that doesn’t fit the alarmist narrative. Why?
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Editors seem complicit, allowing this academic fraud to persist because it aligns with the “climate crisis” storyline.

The ERL paper’s authors clearly rely on the notion that the AMOC is in “desperate need of saving,” which conveniently calls for more funding, more models, and more policy interventions.
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Image: A portion of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) [credit: R. Curry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution @ Wikipedia]