(no subject)

[gothwalk]

From Slashdot, a link to an article on abrupt climate change. I've been thinking some about this for the past couple of years, on and off, and trying to figure out what we could do here were the Gulf Stream to shut down. We'd end up with a climate very like that of Northern Canada - and we all know how the Irish react to half an inch of wet snow. This seems to go against the BBC's opinion, though - they're holding that it'll just get warmer.

The cooling effect seems more rational to me, so let's discuss that. The first notion is that we'd end up with something like the present Scandinavian/Finnish climate here. Unfortunately, that's not true - that climate depends a great deal on the long days in summer, and that won't change here. It's even possible that we'll be looking at a situation where you could walk from Northern Ireland to Scotland for two months a year. Crops will change - the winter crops that are being sown now across Ireland would be impossible, and the growing season for other crops will decrease. Tree populations will change, as deciduous trees give way to conifers, and the practice of keeping animals in fields year-round will be gone. Large areas of the country will become inaccessible - anywhere that's difficult to get to or from in a heavy frost or light snow will be completely blocked off in winter. Just importing enough snowploughs to clear the main roads would be difficult, and the current practice of a digger with a flat blade in front won't cut it (pun intended). And in the first such winter, hundreds if not thousands of people will freeze to death in the stubborn belief that it can't be that cold. Unlike most Irish people, I've been outside in -26°C, and I know you can't walk much further than a mile in that before it starts to get frighteningly cold, even well wrapped up.

So, what can we do - not to prevent this, that's a seperate discussion - but to deal with it when it happens?

Comments

[eudaimonia.livejournal.com]

This is really scary stuff :-( Something I've been thinking about a lot lately too. I've definitely noticed a huge climate change just in my lifetime and it's very depressing. It's interesting to think of scenarios, I wonder how catastrophic it could potentially be? I know if the climate got colder in the U.S. South it would be absolutely devestating to the economy. There are many crops and plants as well as business (oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico - the kid of rigs used in the North Sea, for example are very different than the kind used in warm water) that are very to somewhat dependent on the climate here.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I'm reasonably sure that the Southern US wouldn't be altered by the Gulf Stream - although actually, without the downflow of cold water from the North Atlantic, it's actually possible it'd warm up more, at least on the Eastern side. According to the diagrams I can find online, the Pacific Circle current doesn't come that close to the West Coast. Ths US isn't as crop-dependent an economy as it might be, but Mexico is almost completely agricultural - and Ireland's economy is still largely underpinned by agriculture. A little ice age would do very strange stuff to the economy, let alone a full-scale one. And the notion that an ice age could last for thousands of years... that's a completely different world.

Re:

[eudaimonia.livejournal.com]

::shudders:: true. But our climate here in Texas comes from two directions, the Gulf of Mexico and the north - mostly Midwestern states and Canada (which cause some interesting weather at times, tornados in particular). Not sure how they would be effected...

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

All my knowledge of climate change focuses on Europe, so I can't make much in the way of useful comments. No doubt I'll be poking around the net on this subject for some time to come, so if I find anything, I'll point you at it.

[two-star.livejournal.com]

Move to Spain. ¡Olé!

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Gods, no. For one thing, Hispanic culture leaves me, ah, unimpressed. For a second thing, I like cold. I wear short sleeves at 10°C, and sigh in pleasure at a good sharp frost.

[crimmycat.livejournal.com]

um, I beg to differ. -14F (-26 C) is wonderful. After a week at 30 below (35 below C) or colder, being in the neg-teens was t-shirt weather. now, 40 below is just awful to have to walk or bike to class in. I wasn't that well atired, true, but I respect the guys who work up on the slope, in the oil rigs, at 70 below (around 60 below C). I oddly remember with perfect clarity that 40 below is the same on the F and C scales.

but then, I'm in Alaska. I'm wierd. And my first thought to your remark about inacessibility was "don't you just put studs on your tires in the fall?" Snow's not bad to drive on, with studs - it packs down hard, you just have to remember that it takes longer to change directions or stop. Then again, most of the people in the Lower 48 can't drive on snow, either. And it's not pure conifers - we have lots and lots of birch, cottonwood, maple, with the spruce and fir... Yes, crops would be affected - but with proper agriculture, you can still get a good crop in the summer. Hell, we can even grow corn up here if we start it in a greenhouse, and we've dairies, and horse ranches.

Not saying it would be easy or painless - but people are resourceful. Give the human race credit - you could survive pretty well.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you were in Alaska - good to know. :) But I'm talking here about the ability of Irish people to cope with the change, rather than long-term sustainability, which is obvisouly possible. The lowest temperature recorded in Ireland was about -10°C, and most winters there are only about ten nights that drop below 0. Snow happens at most four days a year, and many years recently not at all. The country comes to a halt when there's snow - buses and trains don't run, employers don't expect people to be in, and there's a rush on bread, milk, canned goods, and candles in the shops. Snow often brings down power lines. We don't have snow tires (I don't think they're even available anywhere in the country), let alone chains, studs, etc, and many of the roads would be completely destroyed by the kind of winter you're used to - they're just not built to withstand it. And as for trees, the non-planted species here are mostly ash, oak, hazel, willow, hawthorn, blackthorn and beech - none of which will do so well in a cold climate, even as the birchs and maples do better. (I can't remember how sycamore does in a cold climate...)

inannajones and I would get on fine. She's Finnish, and knows how to deal with this, and I like the cold, and am learning a bit more every time I'm in Finland in winter about how to deal with it. But a good chunk of the rest of the population here would just have to give up and move south. [Especially these soft Dubliners! ;) ]

[crimmycat.livejournal.com]

*ponders*

you're right, it'd be pure hell. Especially on those as can't move. And the majority of the population would probably believe it was just one bad winter, and then another, and refuse to move...

It is getting warmer up here - though if it's permanent, or the result of several bad El Nino's I don't know. I do know that last year Anchorage almost had a Black Christmas - would have been the second in a couple years. (Black Christmas - when there's no snow on the ground down at sea level. scary!) But folks, even as they say in one breath that winters aren't like they used to be, in the next will claim it's just an odd year.

Even with all the scientists talking, how many people would really listen?

If/when it happens, that'll wreak havoc.