🇩🇪🇫🇷 Berlin pulls plug on Franco-German fighter jet

Chancellor Friedrich Merz proposes scaling back €100bn defence project to co-operation on ‘combat cloud’

Germany has informed France that it wants to withdraw from plans to develop a joint fighter jet, dealing a potentially fatal blow to Europe’s largest defence programme at a time when the continent is seeking to re-arm against the Russian threat.

After months of efforts to rescue the project, Chancellor Friedrich Merz told President Emmanuel Macron during a meeting in Montenegro on Friday that it would be better to end the partnership on the aircraft, according to German government insiders.

Instead, Merz proposed that the two countries and Spain, which is also a partner, continue working together on the so-called combat cloud — the software architecture designed to connect aircraft, sensors, radars, drones and satellites in real time, the officials added. The cloud is already one of the pillars of the €100bn Future Combat Air System (FCAS) programme.

It remains unclear whether other elements of FCAS, including drones, sensors and engines, can survive without the fighter jet at its core.

Those efforts — marked by missed deadlines and a last-ditch Franco-German mediation attempt — ultimately failed to overcome a deepening feud between France’s Dassault Aviation and Airbus’s German aircraft division, the companies tasked with building the jet. The groups have clashed over work share, governance and intellectual property, with relations deteriorating to the point where executives on both sides argued in favour of a split.

FCAS was launched by Macron and then German chancellor Angela Merkel in 2017 as a flagship European defence project intended to replace France’s Rafale and Germany’s Eurofighter fleets from about 2040 with the next-generation jet linked to drones and satellites. Spain joined the programme in 2019.

🔗 https://www.ft.com/content/c13f2931-f2b5-49f7-93ef-b605c22547de

❄️🌊 Mysterious ‘cold blob’ in the Atlantic suggests the AMOC is weakening

A patch of ocean south-east of Greenland is the only place on Earth that is cooling, and it could be a sign that the warm water "conveyor belt" in the Atlantic is slowing down

Over the past 150 years, Earth’s entire surface has been warming, except for one patch of the north Atlantic. Located south-east of Greenland, this area has cooled by as much as 1°C and is known as the “warming hole” or the “cold blob”.

Scientists have been split over why this cold blob exists, but the latest evidence backs up the idea that it is caused by a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the system of currents that transports warmth from the tropics to Europe.

The AMOC carries warm, salty water from the Gulf of Mexico towards the north Atlantic, where it cools and sinks, flowing back south along the ocean floor. Scientists are concerned that the surge of freshwater from Greenland’s melting ice is making this salty water less dense, so it sinks more slowly, weakening the circulation.

Some research suggests the AMOC could cross a tipping point within decades, locking in a future collapse that would freeze Europe and disrupt monsoon rains crucial for agriculture in Africa and Asia. But we only have 22 years of direct observation of AMOC strength, not enough to tease out a clear trend.

Climate modelling has suggested that a slowing AMOC is carrying less warm water to the north Atlantic, resulting in the cold blob. However, other modelling has placed most of the blame on the atmosphere.

Stefan Rahmstorf at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and his colleagues have now investigated the cold blob with climate reanalyses, which are based on direct weather observations from satellites, buoys and ships, rather than climate modelling.

They found that heat loss from the ocean surface has decreased in the cold blob since 1955. In addition, the ocean has been cooling not just near the surface, but also 1000 metres down. That means that the AMOC is transporting less heat, not that winds are taking more heat away, they argue.

The finding reveals that Atlantic Ocean circulation has already been changing for decades, he adds, raising concerns about a collapse not only of the AMOC, but also of the subpolar gyre, a massive swirl of currents around the cold blob. The subpolar gyre helps bring in salty surface water to feed the sinking of cold, dense water that drives the AMOC. If it shuts down, it could reduce temperatures in the UK and nearby countries more rapidly than a full AMOC collapse.

“The subpolar gyre passing this tipping point could already lead to serious climate impacts in western Europe as early as in the 2040s,” says Rahmstorf.

🔗 https://www.newscientist.com/article/2529078-mysterious-cold-blob-in-the-atlantic-suggests-the-amoc-is-weakening/

🇦🇪🇮🇷 A Boeing 737-7jz luxury business jet took off from Abu Dhabi (either Abu Dhabi Int'l Airport or the Al Dhafra airbase) and landed in Tehran earlier today.

This would mark the first in-person negotiation between Iranian and Emirati officials since the 3rd Gulf War began

🔗 EGYOSINT

🗳 🇵🇪 📊 Peru, presidential election (second round):

Preliminary results, 93.9% counted

Sánchez (JPP, left): 50.0% (+0.1)
Fujimori (FP, right): 50.0% (-0.1)

(+/- vs. 93.0% counted)

📎 America Elects

🇮🇪 Explaining the scam behind the Irish economy

🔗 Full show