Anomalies Disrupt Climate Models
How the Atlantic Cold Spot
reveals cracks in conventional
climate models and Darwin’s timeline
Alarming Abnormalities in the Atlantic:
What this Means for Uniformitarian Views of Climatology
by Dr. Sarah Buckland-Reynolds
A series of articles published in May and June 2025 in Nature Communications: Earth and Environment, Climate Dynamics and the Journal of Climate, sounded alarms about present and projected weakening of a major part of earth’s system of ocean currents responsible for maintaining temperature balance in the Northern Hemisphere: the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
One of the indicators of this weakening is the presence of a ‘warming hole’: an abnormally cold spot in the North Atlantic. As the Live Science summary reports, this “mysterious patch” of water has not warmed at the same rate as the surrounding sections of the Atlantic. In fact, it exhibited opposite trends to the surrounding regions over time: during the 1800s, the patch was warmer while the broader region was cooler than today, but between 1901 and 2021, the patch cooled even as the surrounding ocean warmed.
While climate scientists debate this anomaly, with some disagreeing about the slowing of AMOC and/or its impending collapse, there are important implications that this observed complexity in the coupled climate system has on conventional climate interpretation (historical and projected), as well on new questions that are arising on Darwinian hypotheses regarding the nature of environmental pressures.
Currents, Complexity and Controversies: Implications on Competing Conventional Views
To gain a better understanding of the discussion surrounding the AMOC and its implications, we must first examine the conventional view of events linked with its weakening over geologic time, along with prevailing views on climate forcing.
Evolutionary geologists typically interpret earth’s climate history as being shaped by both external forcing mechanisms (factors operating outside the earth that influence climate dynamics) and internal forcing mechanisms, which are earth-based processes or feedback mechanisms that may amplify or reduce changes depending on regional conditions.
Milankovitch Cycles
The prevailing view is that, over the long-term, earth’s climate is primarily shaped by gradual external forces, particularly the ‘Milankovitch cycles’: orbital variations in Earth’s tilt, eccentricity, and precession that affect insolation [sunlight reaching earth’s surface, from sol = sun]. These cycles are thought to influence the dynamics of Marine Isotope Stages (MIS), alternating between glacial and interglacial periods over the past 2.6 million years.
Although the prevailing view is that large-scale changes are primarily driven by external forcing, there is mounting evidence that suggests internal forcing mechanisms—such as AMOC dynamics—play a more significant role than previously assumed. What is interesting about the AMOC is that changes in this system are conventionally regarded as triggers for abrupt climate shifts, in contrast to the gradual, cumulative effects of external forcing mechanisms.
This role of the AMOC has been acknowledged by science institutions such as the Climate Adaptation Center: “AMOC played a key role in some of the strongest and most rapid climate shifts during the past 2.6 million years.” Although abrupt climate changes pose a direct challenge to uniformitarian theory, even proponents of gradualism acknowledge their occurrence, as the evidence is overwhelming.
Rapid Changes Unrelated to Cycles
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Past changes in the strength of the AMOC are hypothesized to have triggered rapid cooling and warming events (called ‘Dansgaard–Oeschger’ (D/O) events) producing decadal to millennial scale changes of up to 10-20° C. Although there is debate over the exact mechanism(s) driving changes in AMOC circulation—such as ‘Heinrich events’ (changes in the density of sections of the current due to the melting of freshwater triggering reduced heat transport), the fact remains that shifts in internal ocean dynamics have a ripple effect on heat distribution across the atmosphere, land and ocean.
According to conventional geological timelines, the last occurrence of such an impact was during the period called ‘The Younger Dryas’, estimated around 12,900 years ago according to consensus dating. Isotope data from Greenland ice cores suggest that rapid temperature shifts took place within mere decades. The presence of such powerful internal mechanisms, capable of operating at rapid speeds on timescales far shorter than 100ka and 400ka orbital forcing mechanisms, challenges the need to invoke an orbital forcing model to reconstruct past climates.
More Complexity Challenges Darwin: AMOC as a Climate Pacemaker
The lead author of another AMOC study published last year by the American Geophysical Union that simulated the impacts of AMOC on monsoons, expressed fear of the uncertainties that AMOC dynamics introduces into models. In an interview featured in Live Science, Ben-Yami cautioned: “Not having robust predictions is perhaps worse than knowing when the system will fail, because the future is so unclear… We should be even more careful in the face of this uncertainty…”
We should be even more careful in the face of this uncertainty
The tone of this appeal signals growing anxiety among climate scientists as added complexities are discovered in the climate system.
Another study led by Cini et al (2025) added further insights on the complexity that exists in the AMOC and its coupled systems. While various climate models assume a predictable and uniform response from AMOC to freshwater input or changes in CO2, their simulations found nonlinear hysteresis behavior. Hysteresis refers to a system’s response to be more dominantly shaped by its own historical state, even when external conditions appear constant. This effect, just like a memory, influences how a system responds based on the path it took to reach its current state.
Rapid (Non-Uniformitarian) Climate Swings
In this new study, it was discovered that AMOC may resist change or collapse suddenly, defying model expectations. In one particular simulation, the AMOC recovered at a higher CO2 level than it collapsed, which they interpreted as reversed hysteresis behavior (although it could also signal the existence of an unexplored extraneous factor influencing changes).
Whatever the cause, these observations raise pertinent questions on uniformitarian predictability. If major oceanic systems like AMOC can undergo rapid, poorly understood, non-linear changes within mere decades, it undermines the confidence in long-term uniformitarian assumptions about climate, oceans, and geology. Catastrophism (sudden, extreme changes) might better explain Earth’s history in some cases than slow-and-steady uniformitarian models.
Although climatologists who embrace gradualism do acknowledge complexity in climate including internal and external forcing, prevailing literature maintains the view that gradual external forcing is the dominant driver of global climate (e.g., Murphy et al. [2021)] and Dong et al [2024)]). However, increasingly, other studies, e.g., Benincasa et al (2024) have found that the moderating effect of internal earth dynamics may even override external forcing mechanisms based on various factors including oceanic depth, and even based on the sections of continental shelves examined!
Implications for Darwinism
Beyond the need to recalibrate climate models and their assumptions, there is a need to examine the implications of these observations on biological processes in the past. If rapid, unpredictable shifts in climate and ocean currents have occurred historically, such instability would disrupt the slow, gradual environmental changes Darwinian evolution requires.
Species adaptation in the Darwinian model presumes incremental environmental pressure over long periods, but chaotic, sudden climate changes could cause rapid extinctions. The existence of multiperiodic rapid changes imposes key limits to the originally hypothesized Darwinian mechanisms. One could ask: When rapid climate fluctuations continually reshape selective landscapes, do prolonged evolutionary timelines still hold explanatory power?
The Paths of the Seas Point to Divine Design
The complexity of the AMOC and other aspects of earth’s climate system should not come as a surprise to creation models. In fact, the very discovery of ocean currents was spurred from a hypothesis directly from Psalm 8:8 that refers to the “paths of the seas”. This verse was noticed by Bible-believing scientist, Matthew Fontaine Maury, who set out to chart these “paths” and his discovery led him to be known today as the “Father of Modern Oceanography”.
Our Creator’s intricate, integrated Earth system: View of a section of the North Atlantic Basin, depicting equilibrium among the ocean, atmosphere and land. (Source: Sarah Buckland-Reynolds)
Among other lessons, this story of the North Atlantic anomaly highlights the intricate interconnectedness and complexity of earth’s climate system. Scientists recognize that small disturbances could cause cascading failures. This points to a system requiring precise calibration, not random chance. Such complex systems, where disrupting one part affects the whole, would be more logically viewed as evidence of design rather than accidental evolution.
As scientists continue to uncover anomalies and seek explanations, it is important for the scientific community to embrace epistemological humility. Advancing science to truly ‘follow the evidence where it leads’ requires recognizing that knowledge and discovery will be ongoing. We should not be fearful of paradigm shifts – once the basis is on truth. The danger with the evolutionary worldview is the consistent a priori dependence on faulty assumptions and unobserved processes.
This newest observation on AMOC raises potent epistemological questions and introduces further uncertainty into climate models, which need to be addressed for these model projections to be useful. While only time will tell whether AMOC will slow or collapse, we should stand in awe of the marvelous complexity that our Creator fine-tuned earth’s integrated systems of the land, ocean and atmosphere maintain habitability and distribute nutrients for the continued sustenance of life on earth.
Dr. Sarah Buckland-Reynolds is a Christian, Jamaican, Environmental Science researcher, and journal associate editor. She holds the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography from the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona with high commendation, and a postgraduate specialization in Geomatics at the Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia. The quality of her research activity in Environmental Science has been recognized by various awards including the 2024 Editor’s Award from the American Meteorological Society for her reviewing service in the Weather, Climate and Society Journal, the 2023 L’Oreal/UNESCO Women in Science Caribbean Award, the 2023 ICETEX International Experts Exchange Award for study in Colombia. and with her PhD research in drought management also being shortlisted in the top 10 globally for the 2023 Allianz Climate Risk Award by Munich Re Insurance, Germany. Motivated by her faith in God and zeal to positively influence society, Dr. Buckland-Reynolds is also the founder and Principal Director of Chosen to G.L.O.W. Ministries, a Jamaican charitable organization which seeks to amplify the Christian voice in the public sphere and equip more youths to know how to defend their faith.