While instabilities of the Atlantic meridional ocean circulation (AMOC) are known to occur during cold glacial periods, warm interglacials such as the last 10,000 years were considered to be more stable. However, a new study now shows that short-term disruptions of deep ocean circulation also occurred during the warm interglacial periods in the last ~500,000 years, suggesting that similar disruption may also occur in the future under warmer than present conditions.
