Great Britain to become Siberia?

[Kwajman]

Heres an article I found online today regarding the loss of the gulf stream and its warming effect upon the British islands. What do any of you who live there think about this?

Changes in Gulf Stream could chill Europe
New data on global warming; thinning polar ice cap

(CNN) -- One outcome of global warming could be a dramatic cooling of Britain and northern Europe.

Scientists now have evidence that changes are occurring in the Gulf Stream, the warm and powerful ocean current that tempers the western European climate.

Without the influence of the Gulf Stream and its two northern branches, the North Atlantic Drift and the Canary Current, the weather in Britain could be more like that of Siberia, which shares the same latitude.

Cambridge University ocean physics professor Peter Wadhams points to changes in the waters of the Greenland Sea. Historically, large columns of very cold, dense water in the Greenland Sea, known as "chimneys," sink from the surface of the ocean to about 9,000 feet below to the seabed. As that water sinks, it interacts with the warm Gulf Stream current flowing from the south.

But Wadhams says the number of these "chimneys" has dropped from about a dozen to just two. That is causing a weakening of the Gulf Stream, which could mean less heat reaching northern Europe. The activity in the Greenland Sea is part of a global pattern of ocean movement, known as thermohaline circulation, or more commonly the "global conveyor belt."

When Wadhams began his studies of Arctic Sea ice more than 30 years ago, there was not a focus on a warming of the region or the ice becoming thinner.
But year after year, a dramatic pattern emerged.

Wadhams and other scientists say the slowing of the Gulf Stream could contribute to other severe effects on the planet, such as the complete melting of the Arctic ice cap in the summer months. That could eliminate the habitat and lead to the extinction of Arctic wildlife, including the polar bear. Current predictions indicate that could happen as early as 2020 or as late as 2080.

Historical changes in the loss of the gulf stream showed that dramatic temperature changes could occur in as little as 10-20 years. That would create hardships unheard of in the population of the British isles.

[BoredNow]

This is known as the 'barn door' effect (imagine the Gulf Stream as a door across the Atlantic hinged in the Caribbean, now watch as it moves north and south)

The is a large amount of geological/geographical evidence for this happening in the past and is very well known in climate change studies.

During the last interglacial (i.e. the time before the last ice age) temperatures in Britian were about 5 degrees C higher than they are today and we had Hippo's in the Thames, there was also far more flooding and higher rainfall!

Essentially climate change is a very complex subject as each bit relies on another bit, for this reason we can say that global warming will either
A) make Britian warmer and wetter
B) make Britian colder (due to Gulf stream moving/shutting down)

the one thing that is unlikely is that things will stay the same!

[Tatsumaru]

If anybody ever watches shows like Horizon on the BBC they absolutely love this topic and there have been a few programmes about how we're all gonna be living in sub-zero temperatures we aren't at all equipped to deal with etc etc. It's worrying but somehow i can't bring myself to really face the reality of it, i just can't imagine it as anything more than another dramatisation! TV has ruined my perception of reality yet again

[CosmicFish]

Well if it gets any colder then it'll certainly create a lot more hardship. As anyone who lives here already knows, one snowflake is enough to bring the whole of London to its knees!

My personal observation is that the winters have got gradually warmer here over the last ten years. Whether this is part of an overall trend though I don't know.

[Strafio]

10-20 years thing was kind of a worst case scenario.
More realistically they expect it to happen over a period of 100 years.
Still something we should be doing something about though...

[El Tejon]

Good grief! Not the Ice Age again! In the '70s this was all the rage and by the '90s Europe would be buried under meters of ice.

More mindless hysteria, follow the money and see who gets a cheque for this nonsense.

[BoredNow]

Originally Posted by El Tejon

More mindless hysteria, follow the money and see who gets a cheque for this nonsense.

Not mindless hysteria, it's hypothesising based on scientific evidence.

Though I will admit scientists will talk up their research to the media for a number of reasons (make it sounds more interesting/increase funding for further research/massage own egos) etc

I'm still waiting for half of one of the Canary islands to fall into the sea and the resultant tsunami take out the eastern seaboard of the US, having seen the devastation caused in Indonesia etc I think that will be far more devastating than a change of temperature that will take a decade or so to get going and thus easier to prepare for.

[Kwajman]

Well, it has happened in the past. The theory is that it will happen again if the stream shuts down.

[El Tejon]

When/if we get another Ice Age, can we hunt Mammoths and Woolly Rhinos?

Bet they taste like chicken.

[Anth]

Does this remind me of a movie?

Possibly "The Day After Tomorrow"?

[holyheadjch]

There seems to be two theories going around - The UK gets hotter, or the UK gets colder. So, taking an average of this my theory is the UK stays exactly the same.

Besides, we always moan that the Uk is too cold, so if it gets hotter thats a good thing, and if it gets colder - snowboarding. Everyone wins

[Kwajman]

Boy we've got some real scientists here.

[iolair]

Yes, it WILL happen. And it's hardly a new idea (in fact, even Jules Verne referred to the consequences of the Gulf Stream "switching off" in the late 19th century).

We know it will happen because the Gulf Stream has deactivated many times over geological history. And without the Gulf Stream, Britain's climate will shift inline with other countries on the same latitude such as Canada (much colder winters).

Rising global temperatures causing the ice caps to melt can disrupt to gulf stream by reducing the salinity of the water in the North Atlantic. What we don't know is at what point this effect would trigger. There's really no way with current models to predict if it's likely in our lifetimes or not.

[Kwajman]

Thank you Iolair for a real response....

[aikiMac]

Changes in Gulf Stream could chill Europe

Could we bring some of that over here, do you think? 117 degrees every day for three months solid gets old, you know?