Global warming will plunge Britain into new ice age 'within decades'
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.
...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... - bringing a nightmare scenario where farmland
turns to tundra and winter temperatures drop below -20C.
...Scientists have long expected that global warming could, paradoxically, cause a devastating cooling in Europe
by disrupting the Gulf Stream, which brings as much heat to Britain in winter as the sun does: the US National
Academy of Sciences has even described such abrupt, dramatic changes as "likely". But until now it has been
thought that this would be at least a century away.
...The new research, by scientists at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Acquaculture Science at
Lowestoft and Canada's Bedford Institute of Oceanography, as well as Woods Hole, indicates that this may
already be beginning to happen.
...Ominously, the trend has accelerated since 1990, during which time the 10 hottest years on record have
occurred. Many studies have shown that similar changes in the waters of the North Atlantic in geological time
have often plunged Europe into an ice age, sometimes bringing the change in as little as a decade.
...When the Gulf Stream abruptly turned off about 12,700 years ago, it brought about a 1,300-year cold period,
known as the Younger Dryas. This froze Britain in continuous permafrost, drove summer temperatures down to
10C and winter ones to -20C, and brought icebergs as far south as Portugal.
news.independent.co.uk
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