After record heat, could the Atlantic make Britain's weather even more extreme?

After record heat, could the Atlantic make Britain's weather even more extreme?Published2 minutes agoByJustin RowlattClimate EditorSomewhere in the stormy waters off Greenland, a bright yellow robotic probe, known as an Argo float, is sinking silently beneath the waves.It is roughly the size of a person, with a tough metal body and an array of sensors packed inside.The float is part of a global effort to solve one of the great mysteries of the ocean: how its hidden movements help shape the climate above.There is no crew, no one steering it. Instead, it drifts with the currents, measuring temperature, the amount of salt in the water and pressure as it moves through the waves.When it rises, it briefly breaks the surface and sends its data home by satellite. Then it does it all again. Dive, drift, measure, surface, transmit. The question those floats are helping investigate is one of the most important - and most contested - in climate science: whether one of the world's great systems of ocean currents is beginning to change.It is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC - a vast, north-south system of currents that carries warm surface water towards the Arctic and returns colder water thousands of miles south through the deep ocean.Image source, ArgoImage caption, The Argo float is part of a global network collecting data to help scientists understand how ocean currents shape Earth's climateBut scientists say the AMOC is under pressure. Most agree it is likely to weaken as the planet warms. The UK government has said that, as "a key component within the Earth's climate system" the AMOC contributes to the UK's long-term climate risks.The disagreement is over how much and how fast the current could change, what that would mean for the weather and crucially, whether the seasons we know today could begin to change.A current under pressureThe question matters because the AMOC is part of a vast heat-moving system tha...