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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?
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?
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