Sunday 15 October 2023

Gonna Need Some Better Gloves

We have been hearing scary Climate Change stories for decades now but it seems only recently now that people are actually dying from it that people have started taking proper notice of all the warnings but i heard a new one today from a scientific meeting with the Environmental Audit Committee's sub-committee and it regards something called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) weakening which had us all scrambling for Google.
The AMOC is a key, large system of ocean currents that influences the UK climate and it carries warm water from the tropics northwards into the North Atlantic but importantly as it does it, some evaporation occurs, which increases the amount of salt which makes the water denser and this dense water sinks deep into the ocean and is carried southwards below the surface before being pulled back to the surface and warms again and completes the circulation.
Oceanographers have been measuring the AMOC continuously since 2004 and found that each year it has been growing weaker and current trends show that it will continue due to the Climate Change's effect on the warming Oceans which is retaining more heat so less sinking of the cold water and less warm water flowing northwards which will directly effect the British weather as the AMOC keeps Britain from the harsh winters such as Canada and Russia who are on the same line of latitude as us.
If the AMOC collapses then the UK will lose that protection and plunge the UK into a much colder climate although scientists said they needed to research it further to know for certain how the UK would be affected but they can say with a high degree of certainty that the AMOC will collapse at sometime and offered up 'a robust estimate' of between 2050 and 2095.
So if it does stop abruptly, what sort of temperatures can Britain expect was the question and the answer was based on the last time the AMOC collapsed, around 12,000 years ago during the last Ice Age, which saw surface air temperatures in the UK drop by approximately 8°C so we would expect
far greater levels of snowfall during the colder months and reduced rainfall during summer and a widespread loss of arable land.
As a typical UK Winter has temperatures of between 0°C and 7°C and we could be looking at greater levels of snow and -8°C and 1°C, i think i may need some better gloves as i don't think my fingerless ones will cut it anymore.

3 comments:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...

move somewhere warmer.

you don't like the weather, wait.

you don't like the climate, move.

Anonymous said...

I would move to somewhere which gets snow so if it’s coming here I don’t need to move.

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...

better get better gloves then. but if you are in the city proper the snow won't be as good. denver and colorado springs get snow, but go a few miles outside of town and it is much nicer.