We're going to die this winter

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Without Global Warming, it will more likely end up once more as Ireland, the Isle of Man, England, Wales, and Scotland being a single island covered with ice and snow.

The UK could end up like that with global warming if the gulf streams shuts down or shifts.

My reading of the climate change literature as it applies to the UK is that over the next one or two hundred years the weather could get worse, get better, or stay roughly the same.

I hope you realize that the so-called shutting down of the Gulf Stream is now seen as extremely far fetched. The amount of fresh water entering the system would have to be at least an order of magnitude greater than any rational projections under Global Warming in order to shut it down.

Even if it did stop, you would only see slightly cooler temperatures in the UK. For example, you would likely be unable to grow grapes in the UK to make wine. A thousand years ago, the UK was warm enough to grow grapes but the Little Ice Age changed that. More recently, people in the UK are once again establishing vineyards.

In other words, if you have an irrational worry about Global Warming causing the Gulf Stream to shut down, don't buy any vineyards.

The whole notion of Global Warming shutting down the Gulf Stream is just one more example of people worried about Global Warming looking for a reason to panic.

As you know, you are presenting one side of the debate. The other side is happy to point to Greenland as an abundant potential source of freshwater should it majorly melt.

I find the debate interesting. I don't trust computer models because I reckon modellers have an axe to grind - follow the money, etc.

Your posts are flawed also: on the one hand you suggest the UK ends up a frozen wasteland, and on the other point to the UK's wine industry. Why did your original post suggest a frozen wasteland? And on what evidence?

This is where your posts go really amiss:


Why? And on what evidence? Check other areas on the UK latitude. The UK owes its temperate climate to the gulf stream. Sure, those who talk about "Siberia" are talking out of their rear end cos there are non-latitudinal reasons for the siberian micro climate, but where is your evidence for your assertion that a UK climate not conditioned by the gulf stream would only be "slightly cooler"?

Apologies to Joe90; shutting up now.

this is not meant as criticism, only use of logic to change joe's way of seeing the world to one that isnt quite so stressful.

I think joe has the problem of not being able to differentiate between things likely to happen and things unlikely to happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor is a very interesting tool to someone trying to decide which things are likely and unlikely.

dont get caught in conspiracy theories joe, that way of thinking is a complete dead end in life.

I think that joe also needs to understand a little more about the way she works too.

A good saying for us is that " the devil finds work for idle hands".

Except for hands think mind.

The way you worry and worry and worry. It's like an aspie special interest in itself.

So take more control and find some interesting things to bury yourself in, things that are more productive than worrying.

A favorite quote of mine, which is so true for aspies.

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”

And that doesnt by any mean im perfect or am even very organised. I just understand the wisdom in aiming for control over your life.

Yeah. If it all melts in a few years, then there MIGHT be a problem. But it's NOT going to melt in a few years. Even the most die-hard of Global Warming researchers do not believe that it could melt that fast.

The best estimates I've seen for how long it is expected to take for the ice cap on Greenland to melt is nearly 20,000 years. At that rate, there is no chance of the fresh water from Greenland causing problems with the Gulf Stream. NONE.



But that's pretty much were the notions of Global Warming even comes from. It's based on models, not on observations.



During the middle ages, grapes were grown in England and wine was supposedly quite common. Note that this was during the Holocene, not during the previous period of glaciation. They are not the same thing. The Holocene is the name given to the current interglacial period -- that is the period between massive glaciations of our current ice age.

If and when the next period of glaciation returns, it will certainly become a frozen wasteland just like it was prior to the Holocene. For most of the past couple of million years, the UK has been a frozen wasteland.

Did you know that the northern UK rebounding because the massive sheets of ice from the last period of glaciation are no longer there? Interestingly enough, as the north of the UK rebounds, the south sinks. If it keeps up, there may not be much left of the Scilly islands after a while as they are subsiding, thought to be the result of the glacial rebound in the north of the UK.



Here's what it would probably take to stop the Gulf Stream: Instead of glacial meltwater in Greenland draining into the ocean, it builds up for hundreds of years behind a massive ice dam. After hundreds of years, maybe well over a thousand years of melting, the ice dam breaks and dumps centuries of melted glacier water into the ocean over a very short period of time.

If that scenario were to happen, we could take steps to stop it. For example, we could break up the ice dam with explosives and allow the water to drain so that it would not build up. There really isn't much chance of it happening.

There are indications that a few thousand years ago during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, there was a massive ice dam in Canada that broke, dumping enormous amounts of melt water (between 100,000 and 200,000 cubic kilometers of fresh water) into the northern Atlantic and interrupting the currents, resulting in somewhat cooler temperatures in the UK and northern Europe for a period of time, but not cool enough to bring about glaciation.

Real scientists, including those who are convinced that Global Warming presents a threat, do not think that (outside of an ice dam scenario) the melting could possibly interfere with the underwater currents, but so many people who know nothing about the science are still convinced that it is a threat just because they read something about it a few years ago.

In other words, it is the non-scientists who continue to try to use this in their arguments. The real scientists are fully aware that it has been thoroughly debunked.

Its really not a big deal. If England tanks, just move. There will be time. Its not like the ice will be advancing 100 MPH. Go to... IDK, Papua New Guinea or maybe out on the Steppes. Yes, maybe some will get eaten by cannibals cause stuff happens, but not everyone and the change will do you good.

It's nothing I'm going to lose any sleep over, but according to the scientists who study such things, there is evidence that at least several times, the earth went from a fairly normal climate pattern to full-blown ice age in about ten years.

Yes, but they were cave people back then and didn't have the scientific capabilities we do now. I mean if it starts really getting cold we can kick off the tops of some volcanos and use them like heaters. If its too warm we can put Ice cubes in the oceans.

Also a icesheet advance over 10 years would still be slow. I mean you could get away just by walking fast.

Well I used to live in the island of Newfoundland (Canada) and it is one of the snowiest places in one of the snowiest countries. I remember one year we had so much snow my second floor bedroom was completely covered (almost up to the roof) and another time we lost power for an entire week right in the middle of winter. It was rough but we made it through!

Where I live we don't get a lot of snow but had one day where we got 66cm (26 inches) of snow and with a heavy drifts my driveway had about 60-70 inches in spots. That was an interesting experience to say the least especially since I couldn't use the snow blower it was so high and had to do it by hand. Either way we survived and a few weeks later most of it melted away. After what happened in Calgary this summer I'll take a few weeks of snow any day!

I remember from when I was a kid seeing pictures of a house that had an outside door on the second floor so that the inhabitants could enter and leave their house in the wintertime when the snow was that deep.

Hold on... Now I remember. We can't all die this winter. Thats because we all died last winter on 21 Dec when the Mayan calander expired.

Joe90, please keep in mind that one of the main reasons there is so much devestation in developing countries is due to the poor quality of the building construction, there is no safe place to be when all the buildings are being torn to shreads and blown about. In GB your likely in much much better shape, 2000 deaths would likely be more like 2, the 2 stupid people who went walking outside and get hit by flying debris.

You are correct that buildings are almost certainly constructed with more care in Britain than they are in the Third World. But I doubt most British buildings were constructed with hurricanes in mind, which requires a specific building code. For example, when I lived on the Texas gulf coast, buildings were constructed, at least in theory, to be able to withstand hurricanes of a certain intensity. And the closer one built to the coast, the more strict those standards became. Where I now live three hundred miles inland, we have different building standards.

The British Isles do, from time to time, encounter some very ferocious winds. While not generally of hurricane strength, they have experienced winds greater than any winds I remember here in the Texas Panhandle that did not involve tornadoes.

I should qualify that. The winds are greater than any real winds I remember around here not counting tornadoes.

A few years ago when we had some extremely rare 60 mph winds one afternoon, the local tv weather station reported winds of around 650 mph. So their winds aren't greater than the highest fictitious winds we've had around here.