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On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 20:18 +0000, Simon Waters wrote: > bas wrote: > > > > love the idea of global warming, just not > > the extreme cold winter bit ! > > I'm not sure you've quite got the idea of what is expected to happen > when the globe (or its surface at least) warms a few degrees. > > The climatologists (at UKMO at least) believe that any warming will be > greater than any cooling caused by disruption to the Gulf stream, > although they don't think the Gulf stream will be disrupted either at > least not in the medium term. My recollection of where I heard this is > vague, I think it was the Met Office Youtube channel, interview with > Professor Slingo. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTVxzhjbvQ > > My understanding of the Gulf stream causes was wrong, apparently the > major driving factor is the trade winds, and the mid-latitude > westerlies, and shape of North America, none of which are going to > change (hopefully) in the time scales of interest (and various > conservation laws of physics, which hopefully aren't going to change any > time soon either?!). I thought the salinity changes causes by sea ice > formation were more important than they are, they are important but > probably on much longer time scales. > > On the other hand if you remember the winter of 1963, then you are > probably at least a decade older than me, and so presumably will be > surprised if you are still around in 2050. > What I found interesting was the recent British Antarctic Survey Ice Dome C data for the last 800000 years. It shows that every inter-glaciation temperature spike for the past 500k years has gone to around 5degC above present. It would be interesting to know whether the predicted anthropogenic 2-3degC rise is in addition to the 5degC we can expect as a result of solar activity, or whether the 2-3deg is the net effect of solar activity, greenhouse gas emissions and particulate emissions reducing solar absorption. Hmmmm -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html