Global warming will plunge Britain into new ice age 'within decades'

[rodbarnett]

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
25 January 2004


Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age within our lifetime by global warming, new research suggests.

A study, which is being taken seriously by top government scientists, has uncovered a change "of remarkable amplitude" in the circulation of the waters of the North Atlantic.

Similar events in pre-history are known to have caused sudden "flips" of the climate, bringing ice ages to northern Europe within a few decades. The development - described as "the largest and most dramatic oceanic change ever measured in the era of modern instruments", by the US Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which led the research - threatens to turn off the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe's weather mild.

If that happens, Britain and northern Europe are expected to switch abruptly to the climate of Labrador - which is on the same latitude - bringing a nightmare scenario where farmland turns to tundra and winter temperatures drop below -20C. The much-heralded cold snap predicted for the coming week would seem balmy by comparison.


http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=484490

[pmbryant]

1. I think the words "will" and "ice age" are a little strong

But we can't get away from the basic fact that global warming may lead to very dramatic, and unpredictable changes in climate all over the globe.

The fact that we have no real clue what these changes will be should be the scariest aspect. It makes long-range planning essentially impossible.

--Peter

[IrateCitizen]

2. Considering that the Gulf Stream is already diminishing...

I don't think such predictions are too far off the mark. If the Gulf Stream disappears entirely, temperatures in Northern Europe could fall considerably.

[pmbryant]

3. Absolutely

It seems more likely than not that this will happen. But we don't really know for sure. Our understanding of the interplay of all the factors that contribute to local climates is too rudimentary and imprecise.

And even if that does happen, Northern Europe will be much colder than it is now, but it won't be under thousands of feet of ice, as the term "ice age" may imply. ;-)

--Peter

[sweetheart]

9. Its easy for americans to say what you say

I live at 58 degrees north, north of denmark, lateral with sweden and norway. THe gulf stream allows people round here to have outdoor heards of animals and to farm crops in the summer. The houses are not built with insulation to endure the kind of cold winters that an ice age wouuld bring.

America produces the greenhouse gasses, pollutes the planet and then scientific types like yourself chirp up with scientific analysises like that that really are a bit short of a full deck.

The gamble you're making with other peoples lives is very very very serious indeed.

Last year was the dryest on record in scotland since record keepng began. This january is tshirt weather outside, though today its a bit colder. If the surface runoff from fresh water melting in the north atlantic from greenland and canada does indeed stop the stream, as a good number of respectable scientists suggest, then you better be very frikkin' sure of yourself to make remarks like you have.

The problem is that the bullshit scientists AND the greenhouse gasses are coming from the same country. Scientists can always come up with something stupid, like that the earth will, on average get warmer anyways, as the sun ultimately consumes the planet and turns in to a red dwarf... therefore global warming is to be expected.... its all a matter of how long you consider the sample time... and other abuses of data.

I think you should consider it more seriously like perhaps it could be you who's entire life is put at risk, that you might be forced to take very serious choices to survive if such a cold wave were to come. London (america's ally.. what a joke) stands to be very badly damaged in that it is further north than moscow, and if ice age temperatures were to happen in britain, the loss of GDP would be greater than the claimed loss to the american GDP of controlling emissions.

[pmbryant]

12. I think you've mistaken me for someone else

...then scientific types like yourself chirp up with scientific analysises like that that really are a bit short of a full deck.

Not sure what I said or mentioned that was short of a full deck. I'm a huge proponent of doing something strong and immediate to fight global warming/climate change. My point is that these predictions may or may not be accurate, and that is one reason why we need to do something about it right away. Because what we cannot predict, we cannot prepare for.

The gamble you're making with other peoples lives is very very very serious indeed.

Again, this appears directed at someone who actually opposes action.

If the surface runoff from fresh water melting in the north atlantic from greenland and canada does indeed stop the stream, as a good number of respectable scientists suggest, then you better be very frikkin' sure of yourself to make remarks like you have.

If someone said a hurricane 500 miles off Florida "will" hit downtown Miami next week, and I said "Well, that's a possibility, but we can't be sure. People all along the coast should be preparing to do something." then what exactly have I done wrong? I think that is a reasonably close analogy to what I was saying about the language in this article about climate change.

--Peter

[sweetheart]

13. not you personally

Its a tone you reflect in your post, where you're suggesting ... ahhh its not soo bad.

Just as an american living in the part of the world where the impact will be worst felt, i have the face to face relationship every day with the people that american policy is potentially putting at risk... and glib dismissal of a very very serious potential hazard to friends is not very becoming.

If i said exactly what you said, in a discussion on this subject at the pub, i'd get punched in the mouth. The climate change already is great enough to warrant action.

Please forgive any appearant "personal" response, as i was simply responding to tone, as your tone is indeed somewhat representative, even in a hint, of the glib dismissal the american scientific community has made of this.

If the possiblity is 1 in 10,000 that's too high, and must be acted on very seriously. The gamble is too risky to take, except if you're not taking it, or someone else has to pay if you lose. (not you peter, but stereotype american-think)

I already have taken enough abuse over this global warming banal ignroance chanted by teh white house, and it is simply glib. The disrespect for other peoples and the impact that american shit will have on thier lives indicates gross disregard and disconnection with the real folks who will pay the toll if the hazard is real.

Sorry if i'm hot about the subject. I do the face time with the people who will pay, and am a local ambassador of sorts, someone who can't escape the passport or the brutal, hateful abuse of science that calls a non-american problem, a non-problem.

[pmbryant]

16. Thanks

I am not dismissing anything glibly when I say that the term 'ice age' is inappropriate, and I'm sorry I gave that impression with my insensitive choice of wording.

I didn't like the way the article threw out the term 'ice age' so loosely, because I happen to think precision in language wins us more credibility, and thus a better chance of swaying people to our point of view. Indeed, things can get devastatingly cold in northern Europe without it being an 'ice age'. And I should have mentioned that above to make sure my point was more clear.

I agree that most Americans in general really don't seem to pay much attention to this matter, since they don't figure it will have a big impact on them personally. Except maybe Americans up north who think it might make their cold winters less cold, and then they say, 'What's wrong with that?' Europe seems likely to suffer far more serious consequences based on our current understanding.

My argument is an attempt to (accurately) frame the issue in a way that will hopefully appeal more to Americans in general. It is a plain fact that climate models are not good enough to make reliable predictions; they are just educated guesses. (Ironically, this inaccuracy of the models is one reason right-wingers give for dismissing the problem entirely; though in doing so, they are simply burying their heads in the sand).

Given this unpredictability, why should we Americans be so sure that the worst we will be dealt is milder winters, and a couple extra summer heat waves? Amongst other things, unforeseen changes in rainfall patterns are likely to be highly destructive to the American economy.

--Peter

(EDIT: spelling)

[patricia92243]

4. Didn't two ice burgs that were millions of years old, melt last summer?

Our Fearless Leader doesn't believe in global warming - so that must be right (sarcasm)

[tridim]

7. Well, they say it's a 'natural' shift in climate

and use that as an excuse to not do anything. They don't understand that regardless of what is causing the climate change, we still have to do something to fix it.

Art Bell was talking about this last night and brought up a good point. What happens to the European population if most of their land becomes uninhabitable very quickly? Do they all migrate to North America? It's a scary thought. He also wondered aloud if this is why the BFEE is attempting to hoard the worlds supply of oil. It actually makes sense.

[highlonesome]

14. well...

As much as I hate W, there was also a group of 17,000 scientists who are skeptical of the dangers of global warming....

[jpak]

17. This petition was a fraud

check it out

http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:uuq4TmDQW4YJ:www.gristmagazine.com/dearme/Thinktank.pdf+17000+scientists+petition+debunked&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[pmbryant]

19. Looks like this particular myth has been circulating for a while now

I'm surprised I'm not more familiar with it. Thanks for the link. Here's an excerpt:

In 1998, the petition was widely debunked as containing the names of people whose climate credentials are questionable - including the lead singer for the Spice Girls, the doctors from the tv show M*A*S*H, and singer James Brown.

The New York Times covered the farce. The Associated Press reported on May 2, 1998, that Robinson conceded “that he made little attempt to verify the credentials of those who responded to the petition.”

In fact, the petition and its distribution were so misleading that the National Academy of Sciences held an unprecedented news conference to announce that it was in no way related to the petition or the “scientific” study which had been circulated with it.

[jpak]

20. Yup, and it drives me nuts...

That and the "in-the-'70's-environmentalists-were-worried-about-global cooling" nonsense as well.

ugh

[pmbryant]

21. That one I'm familiar with :-)

And for the last couple years, we've also had the "Global warming on Mars and Pluto, so it must be the Sun's fault" thing too. Both complete and utter junk that got started by hyperbolic popular press stories.

:eyes:

Alas, I can't blame the Mars story solely on the press, as they latched onto some scientifically-unsound (to be kind) comments made by an engineer who helped build one of the cameras on a Mars orbiter.

--Peter

[EV1Ltimm]

5. they predicted the same thing for north america in the 70's...

"they" also predicted that on 5-5-2000, when the planets aligned, that the earth would be torn to shreds by an immense gravitational field... needless to say, it didn't generate enough gravity to suck the olive out of a martini.

I've never taken Doomsday predictions very seriously. (ie Yellowstone volcano, asteroids, polar inversion, four horsemen)

[pmbryant]

6. The language is a bit overblown, but dismissing it entirely is foolhardy

This is very reputable scientific research here. So comparing it to some new age planetary alignment doomsday scenario is completely unfair.

I admit that the press and some others latch on to the most hyperbolic interpretation and language, but that is absolutely no reason to dismiss concerns for global warming and climate change entirely.

Warning about climate change is no more 'doomsday' than is warning coastal residents about an impending hurricane strike.

--Peter

[EV1Ltimm]

11. noted...

i guess that was unfair of me to mention that.

but i'm sure that the scientists involved were basing their findings on certain meteorological patterns coupled with the said diminishing gulf stream. But Earth has a way of throwing us a curve ball every now and then. I guess the only real point that i'm trying to get out there is that there are really no definites when it comes to such things...

but all-in-all, there's no excuse to continue on our global warming trend and my stance doesn't necessarily condone it.

[Viking12]

8. while I agree

that the article posted is overly certain and overly dramatic in its predictions, to say that "they" predicted ice age in North America in the 1970s is bunk. "They", being scientists, made no such claims (although popular media did).
http://www.wmc.care4free.net/sci/iceage/
In the current case, "they" being scientists, do make strong warnings about the rate and magnitude of cliamte change.

[EV1Ltimm]

10. Not so bunk...

It was a recurring theme for documentaries to quote "scientists" stating that we were uncontrollably heading towards an ice age within 10 years of filming. I specifically remember Leonard Nimoy looking me square in the eye via TV and saying those words.

Albeit, Leonard Nimoy is not exactly what someone or anyone would consider to be at the forefront of science. :) But i'd also imagine that it would be difficult to find any research on the matter to be found on the internet 20 years after it was proven to be false.

[jpak]

15. Yes bunk

check this out...

http://www.ezresult.com/article/Global_cooling#1975_National_Academy_of_Sciences_report

I know of no paper published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that predicted global cooling.

It's an urban legend.

The published peer-reviewed evidence that global warming is underway and caused by human activities, however, is compelling...

Richard A. Kerr (2001) It's Official: Humans Are Behind Most of Global Warming Science 2001. Vol. 26, pp 291: 566

J. E. Harries, H. E. Brindley, P. J. Sagoo, R. J. Bantges (2001). Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997. Nature. Vol. 410 pp 355 - 357

T. P. Barnett, D. W. Pierce, Reiner Schnur (2001). Detection of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the World's Oceans. Science. Vol. 292: pp 270-274.

S. Levitus, J. I. Antonov, J. Wang, T. L. Delworth, K. W. Dixon, and A. J. Broccoli (2001) Anthropogenic Warming of Earth's Climate System. Science. Vol 292: pp 267-270.

[EV1Ltimm]

18. No shit?

Here's my letter to Leonard Nimoy.

Dear Leonard The Liar,

You filmed a documentary in the 70's where you stated that we were headed towards an ice age.

It's appearent that you joined along with other media personalities in citing a research document that was misunderstood soon after it's publishing, eroding the faith i had in your integrity.

I'm sure you'll agree that it's a moot point now, but I feel betrayed that you would make such a statement without first researching it to a reasonable level, leading poor impressionable youths such as myself to believe that we are heading to an ice age, retroactively, in 1984-ish.

You can go to hell!

- Timm