Terrific, what's up next - Locusts?

"According to Paul R. Epstein, at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Global Warming is what's making it colder in the winter in the US:

Normally, water circulates in the North Atlantic like this: Cold, salty water at the top sinks; that sinking water acts as a pump, pulling warm Gulf Stream water north and thus moderating winter weather. But now, fresh water from the thawing ice and heavier rain is accumulating near the ocean's surface; it's not sinking as quickly. (The tropics are faced with the opposite phenomenon.

According to Dr. Ruth Curry and her colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the tropical Atlantic is becoming saltier; as warming increases, so does evaporation, which leaves behind salt.) The "freshening" in the North Atlantic may be contributing to a high-pressure system that is accelerating trans-Atlantic winds and deflecting the jet stream — changes that may be driving frigid fronts down the Eastern Seaboard. The ice-core records demonstrate that the North Atlantic can freshen to a point where the deep-water pump fails, warm water stops coming north, and the northern ocean suddenly freezes, as it did in the last Ice Age.

No one can say if that is what will happen next. But since the 1950's, the best documented deep-water pump, between Iceland and Scotland, has slowed 20 percent."

Thats just great. Perhaps we should call it Global Weather Volatility instead . . .

Source:
Global Chilling (PDF)
By Paul R. Epstein
NYTimes, January 28, 2004, Wednesday
http://nytimes.com/2004/01/28/opinion/28EPST.html

Posted at 05:38 AM in Current Affairs, Science | Permalink

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