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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (3070)	1/27/2004 2:29:37 AM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36918

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 CC