What Lies Beneath: AMOC, El Niño, & Climate Chaos with Emily Schoerning
It’d be easy, with the clusterf**k of crazy-making economic, geopolitical, and democracy-in-decline news dominating the scene, to forget that the unraveling of environmental systems waits for no person. That’s why we’ve asked Emily Schoerning to return to Crazy Town. Asher and Emily sit down together (uh, virtually) to discuss the oceanic dynamics – from worrisome to downright apocalyptic – that could make the Strait of Hormuz disruption look like a five-minute wait at the Starbucks drive-thru. In this episode they discuss the possibility of a 2026-2027 Super El Niño, the growing risks of an AMOC collapse, and how each of us can approach near- and longer-term resilience.
Originally recorded on 5/20/26.
Sources & Links- American Resiliency
- Links to graphs/resources that Emily mentioned:
- NOAA ENSO Update (see page 23)
- Columbia El Nino Update
- Climate Reanalyzer (to visualize average SST changes as a graph)
- Zach Labe's visualizations (to visualize currently non-apocalyptic Antarctic sea ice)
- Copernicus (to visualize SST anomalies on world map)
- Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown modulates atmospheric rivers in a warmer climate by Mimi, M. S., Liu, W., Ma, W., & Chen, G. Nature Communications, 2026
- Articles/papers related to AMOC and El Nino:
- Observational constraints project a ~50% AMOC weakening by the end of this century by Portmann, V., Swingedouw, D., Khattab, O., & Chavent, M. Science Advances, 2026
- Critical Atlantic current significantly more likely to collapse than thought by Carrington, D. The Guardian, April 15, 2026
- El Niño/Southern Oscillation (Enso) Diagnostic Discussion, Climate Prediction Center, 14 May 2026
- A'super El Niño?‘ The Conversation, May 14, 2026
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Credits
Production and editing by Alex Leff. Editorial assistance and transcripts by Taylor Antal.
Theme music is “Way Huge” and “Don’t Give Up” by Midnight Shipwrecks, used with permission.
Thanks to all the Crazy Townies, our listeners who are trying to understand humanity's overshoot predicament and do something about it.