The Week reports:
IF you thought the British weather couldn’t get any more unpredictable, think again. Temperatures in the UK are set to drop by about 1C as a result of climate change, playing “havoc” with weather patterns, the Daily Telegraph reports.
While the key message delivered by the UN’s climate science panel in Stockholm today is that the world is warming – temperatures will rise by more than 2C by the end of the century and man’s activity is almost certainly the cause – there are regional variations. The repercussions for the UK will be a drop in temperatures caused by cooler currents in the Atlantic.
In specific terms, the drop will be caused by the disruption of the Gulf Stream, the current carrying warm water from the equator to Britain’s west coast. It will “weaken by 20 to 44 per cent by the end of the century”, the Daily Telegraph says, precipitating a fall in temperatures across the UK.
I just saw an old BBC Horizon, warning that ‘Global Warming’ could trigger a new Ice age in Northern Europe, due to increased freshwater runoff (from Greenland and Siberia) ‘choking’ the Gulf Stream. Ah – since it was warmer than now in the Roman and MWP, how come Europe didn’t freeze immediately after?
Weaker Gulf Stream? Did the world stop rotating again? I hate when that happens.