[thechat] evoltcon 3.0

[Michael Trim]

> > >Whatever happens, we need to get outdoors. It's not often that visitors
> to
> > >this country get to experience summer weather, but the one coming
> promises
> > >to be a doozy.
> >
> >    Where you getting that prediction, Seb? I'd love to have a
> good summer
> > in the British Isles, seeing as we haven't had one in, oh, about six
> years?
>
> Me too, although Christmas day was quite summery, i.e. chilly,
> overcast and
> with the threat of rain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,872590,00.html

The snowfalls of the past week may be just a taster of what is to come, if
the latest predictions from scientists are correct. The amount of ice
melting from the surface of the Greenland ice sheet broke all known records
last year, threatening a rapid rise in sea levels and a return of very cold
winters to Britain because of a slowing down in the Gulf Stream.

Already the Gulf Stream, which bathes the west coast of Britain in warm
water from the Gulf of Mexico and keeps the country much milder than normal
for such northern latitudes, is slowing down. Even greater melting of the
Greenland ice could shut off the currents altogether, allowing depressions
to dump snow rather than instead of rain in Britain and leading to a much
colder continental climate, as has been experienced in the past week.

As happens on the eastern seaboard of Canada, which on the same latitude,
the sea could freeze and snow lie for weeks or months instead of a day of
two.