(no subject)

[gothwalk]

Earth hits '2,000 year warming peak'. Well, no kidding. But what amused me was one of the sceptics' explanations as to why the Thames no longer freezes over.

"They also reinterpret the fact that the river Thames used to freeze over more often, saying the design of the original London Bridge affected the river and made it freeze more easily."

Brilliant grasp of fluid dynamics there, guys. Next time I need ice for a party, I'll just drop a miniature of London Bridge in 1850 in some water, shall I?

Water will not freeze unless the temperature drops below zero, and stays there. Moving water will not freeze unless it stays there for some time. And moving water will definintely not freeze long enough for skaters to go on the ice until it's been below zero for many days. London no longer gets these conditions, and unless the original London Bridge turned the Thames from moving water into still water, it's not going to have had much effect.

Comments

[ocultado.livejournal.com]

Maybe the original London Bridge was really really tall, and had a vortex at the top that used to suck coldness from high in the atmosphere and pump it onto stretches of the Thames, thereby providing lots of, well, coldness? Also, it stopped the flow of water, and all those pictures of boats going under London Bridge where actually buses.

[(Anonymous)]

Possible explanation, not neccessarily a good one:

Old London Bridge had lots of narrow arches that constricted the flow; high, sluggish flow above the bridge, and fast flow below. Above the bridge, the slow flow may have allowed ice to form without being broken up by eddies. Below the bridge, the extra surface "wind chill" (stationary air, fast moving water) may have allowed ice to form faster.

But I'm not convinced either, though. :-)

[bardiphouka.livejournal.com]

The irony about the warming trend is that we have had one of the cooler Summers in recent history here. As for the river freezing over..I wonder if the pollution level might have something to do with it..density levels and such?

[luis-mw.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking along the lines of smog - a, keeping warmth from sunlight away and b, helping to trap colder air below warm air, but my knowledge of meteorology is fragmented and many years old...

Even if they were right...

[ezrael.livejournal.com]

They believe their research provides unequivocal confirmation that humans are affecting the climate.

But sceptics still insist that any human contribution is likely to be too small to explain what is happening.

Uhm, wouldn't a bridge be, in fact, a human contribution? Or was I incorrect in my assumption that London didn't just grow out of a seed?