# Thursday 1 December 2005

Predicted effect of global warming cools Europe

New Scientist is reporting this hour on findings published today in the journal Nature, showing a 30% reduction in warm-water flows in the Atlantic Gulf Stream. This is a long-predicted effect of global warming, similar to changes in the flow that may have caused the so-called "mini ice-age" of the 14th and 15th centuries—and the major ice age of 110,000 years ago.

Not to be alarmist or anything, but this news is the climatic equivalent of seeing fifteen "for sale" signs on your block. It shows that something is very, very wrong, and the effects will be very, very bad. Think: ice skating straight across the Thames from the London Eye to Westminster. Think: Western Ireland under three feet of snow. Think: Madrid with Denver's climate.

Think I'm exaggerating? Nature is, after all, an alarmist publication. And New Scientist is only repeating the party line. You've got to be skeptical of the evidence-based community, you know.

Look, we've known for decades that we were influencing the climate. Journalist James Burke talked about exactly this happening in his 1991 miniseries After the Warming. Only, he speculated the slowdown happening in 2050, not 1995.

I've always thought global warming would benefit Chicago, even as it punished cities like Edinburgh. I just didn't think it would happen in my lifetime.

(Why the sheep? He's in Western Ireland, and he's cute, and ten years from now his descendants will be glad they have wool coats.)

Politics | Weather
David Braverman, Thursday 1 December 2005 03:41:59 UTC
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Thursday 1 December 2005 06:04:10 UTC
Just because the sugar maples are expected to stop growing in the continental US in our lifetimes is no reason to get all riled up about global warming. Just because the average UN climate model shows a meteorological shift equivalent to a geological shift of 15 latitudinal degrees within the next century is no reason to panic (one of the more extreme models is over 20 degrees, which would give NYC weather similar to Savannah GA by 2100). Just because the carbon sequestration rate is falling, hence accelerating the effects of global warming, is no reason to be concerned. Really. Don't worry, be happy. Who knew Bobby McFerrin was such a plutocratic tool?

Changing subjects, do you know why the sheep is painted? I do, but I'm wondering whether you do...
Yak
Thursday 1 December 2005 13:44:27 UTC
Sheep are painted so that ranchers can tell them apart. In Ireland, for example, sheep are allowed to graze in common areas covering hundreds of hectares. Come shearing time, they're rounded up to be sheared. Since most sheep don't come when called by name, ranchers paint their bottoms or sides to figure out who gets paid for which wool.

Not bad for a city boy, eh?
David
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