Posted by cactus on March 26, 2008, at 6:59:15
In reply to Re: So Many Weather Symtoms Hot and Cold in USA, posted by caraher on March 25, 2008, at 18:56:20
> And to add to the complications, there can be local changes to a cooler climate as a result of overall warming. Part of what keeps western Europe reasonably warm is the "Gulf Stream" ocean current. Warm water crosses the Atlantic from west to east, where it cools, sinks deep and returns. The salinity of salt water apparently helps keep this "conveyor belt" running.
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> One result of the melting of Arctic ice might be to interrupt this process. Europe could then cool considerably. (A simple and instructive exercise is to compare the latitudes of North American cities you would consider "cold" and find European cities at similar latitudes. I was startled when I first noticed that Detroit is at roughly the same latitude as Rome!)I understand what you mean by that BUT Rome is on a thin peninsula surrounded by the warm mediterranean in Summer and oceans usually keeps places warmer during winter. The easiest way to explain this is a term called continentality, which means that detroit is landlocked. It has a massive expanse of land both north and south of it so you feel the seasons much more harshly, especially summer and winter, including the coasts because North America is so big. Hence Rome's mild winters and Detroit's freezing winter. Where I live in Australia I'm 38 degrees south of the equator which is the same as Athens and Washington DC in the northern hemisphere. I have no great land mass south of me so our winters compared to DC are a walk in the park. We might get a snow flurry once every 20 years where as Athens can get snow in winter but it's not common due to the mediterranean again, yet DC is freezing in winter.
You are so right about the gulf stream, look into what it does for the UK. London is 51 degrees north of the equator and compare it's it's climate to Kiev in former Russia and Edmonton in Canada. It's very interesting, I'm such a weather geek. If the gulf stream slows or even stops due to arctic ice melts messing up sea salinities there will be massive repercussions worldwide.
poster:cactus
thread:819682
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20080303/msgs/819955.html