Storylines

The following two storylines are meant to give the reader an impression of what living in a world with an AMOC collapse might look like. The stories are fictional narratives set in the future and depict different people’s local experiences of how they have managed to adapt to changes in the climate.

The first is set in a scenario in which AMOC collapses in low global warming levels causing sea ice expansion in the Nordic Seas toward Iceland. The second is set in Northern Finland in a world where AMOC collapse takes place at an intermediate global warming level with winter time cooling, but summertime warming. Both scenes are set to the year 2087 which is unrealistically soon for the level of impacts imagined, but was a conscious choice by the report writers as the impact of technological development beyond 2150, by which these impacts become more likely, is hard to estimate.

Spring in Iceland in 2087

Ragnar Hjörleifsson still wakes before the February dawn, though there is no dawn anymore – only the slow whitening of the horizon. The sea beyond Þórshöfn lies unmoving, a solid sheet of sea ice that glows faintly under the pale sky. Now 42, Ragnar has fished since he was twelve. His father’s boat, Brynja, sits half-buried in snow at the pier, ropes frozen into stiff coils. The cooperative that used to own ten boats, fifty men, now stands empty – its office windows blind with frost.

Ragnar remembers when the sea ice began to drift south, around 2068. “Just a cold year,” they said. Then came 2075, when ice blocked the fjords until May. The coastal fisheries were first to collapse as spawning failed on the ice covered shelves – at the same time, cod and other species Ragnar used to catch from the Iceland Sea, is now out of reach far to the east of the Icelandic waters where the ocean still stays free of ice. People have started to leave – first the younger ones, to Denmark, to Canada, places that still have fish.

At the café, which is one of the last open places in town, Ragnar and other men sit in silence with their hands around cups of synthetic coffee, watching the Ministry’s numbers scroll across the wall screen.

Excerpt from the Icelandic Ministry of Economic Development, Report No. 14/2087

“Fish export revenues declined by 83% between 2079 and 2086. The collapse of pelagic stocks is now total. Domestic food insecurity is projected to reach 62% by winter 2088. Immediate intervention from Nordic and EU partners remains under negotiation.”

There’s discussion in Parliament of evacuating the northern settlements entirely, consolidating everyone around geothermal hubs in the southwest. Others speak of joining a “Nordic Recovery Bloc” if Norway and Finland agree to share their food reserves.

Addendum: Parliamentary Session Transcript, 18 March 2087

Minister for Trade:

“With the North-West and North-East Passages impassable, global shipping routes are collapsing. Iceland’s strategic value has shifted from maritime to geothermal. The age of the ocean is over.”

Opposition MP:

“Then what are we, without the sea?”

Ragnar listens, but says nothing. He knows what those words mean: Emigration. The end of what his family had done for generations. That night he walks down to the pier, ice cracking under his boots. Beneath the frozen sheet, somewhere deep below, lie the fishing grounds where cod once shimmered like silver dust. He places his hand on the cold rail of Brynja, feels the memory of the engine’s rumble, the smell of salt and diesel. He knows they cannot stay. There will be nothing to catch, nothing to sell, nothing to eat.

See article about Snow-covered Iceland.

Autumn 2087 in Rovaniemi, Northern Finland

Liisa, 32, has woken up to another morning in Rovaniemi and hurries along the rivershore between the oak trees. Today’s tourist group is soon at the docks waiting for her to show up. The riverside park reminds her of her childhood in Copenhagen, though she remembers that her favorite childhood park no longer has trees. None survived the increasingly frequent coastal flooding.

Rovaniemi has been her home for the past twenty years, ever since her family moved back to Finland when her parents found work during the booming 2060s. By that time, the year-round operations along the Northwest Passage and Northeast Passage since the 2050s had led to huge investments in ports along the Norwegian and Russian Barents and Kara Sea coasts. During that time Finland had finally completed a railroad connection up north, which is now the main route for fish and deep-sea mining products to European markets.

Liisa meets the tourist group at the docks and makes sure the German travellers escaping the notorious Hamburg summer heat have their life vests secured. Once everyone is aboard, she steers the boat out of the docks and towards the Ounasjoki river. It would be fun to drive up Kemijoki river as well, but she knows that tourists wouldn’t appreciate the view of datacenters along the way. Instead, their destination is a reindeer farm farther upstream, one of the last ones still in operation. Widespread mining and renewable energy developments, combined with summers now too hot for the reindeer calves, have forced most herders out of business.

However, now a new kind of change is at hand. The morning’s news once again discussed the slowdown of the North Atlantic ocean circulation and the consequences for the Nordic economy. Last winter marked the deployment of the ICEPACK-era icebreakers along the North West Passage. The seasonal forecast now indicates that this year the North East passage is also likely to remain frozen from November onward, while breaking news suggest that also the Northern Baltic Sea coast may freeze as early as in December for the second year in a row. Built in the 2030s, the icebreakers are now over 50 years old, prompting the Finnish government to consider constructing new vessels. Unfortunately, much of the know-how has been lost, and it remains unclear how quickly it could be rebuilt. The pace of change has been rapid and surprising to many, although scientists had warned that the rapid melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet would have far-reaching consequences. Unfortunately, the proposed early warning system for monitoring the North Atlantic ocean currents was dismissed as a waste of money in the warming world and was never implemented.

People in Lapland, Liisa among them, have grown used to mild winters. During the past two winters, when the temperatures have been below -30 °C, she has been finding herself wondering how her grandfather ever managed to get to school during the winters of the 2020s. After the harsh winter, the snow melted relatively early again this year, as it usually does, and a dry summer has left the water level in the river at a record low. Liisa knows that she must navigate carefully.

While the tourists take their holiday photos, Liisa worries about the electricity bills ahead of the forecasted cold winter. Hydropower from the Kemijoki river is unlikely to heat her apartment as reliably as before, and once again she is grateful that her air conditioning unit also functions as a heat pump.

On the way back, the autumn colours paint the landscape in shades of orange, while the sky turns red with wildfire smoke drifting from massive fires raging across northern Russia and Canada. The tourists take their final photos of the Rovaniemi skyline before boarding the night train bound for Hamburg.