So, we say that "there are no real winters anymore."
Is seems to be to late to avoid the influence of human interference on the Global weather.
"So, why bother if it is to late?
Nothing we can do, right?"
The mild weather in Western Europe is largely due to warm Atlantic Ocean water (part of the gulf stream) that flows from the equator to the north and into the North Sea. Today, polar ice is rapidly melting, and so removing the Earth from it's reflective solar shield (see picture below). So we should expect even more rapid Global heating, not a local cooling down. But the North Sea is undeep.
What if a growing cold understream (blue arrows) overwhelms the warm upper stream (red arrows)? Could this (for a period) cool down the temperature in countries bordering the North sea?
"Hmm,... waiteminut,... I live in Belgium, bordering to the North Sea,... thiziznotfunny!"
Science-fiction?
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| Ice and snow reflect up to 90% of the Sun back into space. |
24 hours of newsgathering :
- Interfax informs that today alone, 300 new fires are buring in the area of the Russian Capital sity, Moscow. Sight is limited in the city to 50 meters. And the misery is not over yet. All countries call back their personnel from their embassies.
- Hospitals, roads and houses flooded in the Polish city of Warsaw. In the city alone, 500 trees were lifted out of the ground by the wind.
- In Germany, Poland and Tsjechia floods killed people, destroyed roads and houses.
- Giant ice shelves, 260 square kilometers, four times the size of Manhattan New York, broke free from the coast of Greeland. The icebergs are now floating between Greenland and Canada.
- Pakistan is flooded by the hardest mousson rains in the history of the country. Evacuation of 15 million Pakistani is nearly impossible as half the country is struck by heavy rain.
- Giant land slides in the city of Dong Chung destroy houses and kill people in China. Heavy rain fall destroyes houses, sewers and roads.
- Tornado's in the USA destroy farms.
- The north and center of Portugal is ravaged by bush fires.
- In Croatia, wild bears can't find food anymore. The authorities decided to feed the bears corn, meat and fruit to avoid that the animals enter the cities.
Our planet is heating up. Climate zones are shifting from the equator to the poles.
Slow animals and plants can not cope with the speed of displacement of the climate zones.
Life that cannot follow the speed of the climate change vanishes or has difficult to survive in the original habitat. Animals and plant life moves to other regions where they disturb the local natural system. This is not doomsday talk. It's an observation.
Example : Spain becomes a desert.
A week ago, I drove on a motorcycle from Faro, in the South of Portugal, diagonally crossing Spain to the north (Andorra). It is shocking to see the country, below the northern mountains around Calatayud, transformed in to a dry desert where no man or mouse can survive. Only in the mountains closer to the Pyrenees, grass starts growing again. Coming from the south, Madrid, the capital city of Spain looks like an oasis of surviving human life.
I remember the vanishing of the gletcher of Kaprun Austria in the early seventies.
I was a younster and the impression of lost nature could not yet be fully understood. In only a few years time, these giant gletchers lost hundreds of meters of their lenght. The local Austrians were shocked, even more scared. They said that the World was heating up. Oh well, probably small town talk? Those farmers from the mountains, how could they know more than scientists.
The last time I went to Kaprun is roundabout 25 years ago. The cable train that used to bring you to the surface of the gletcher brought you to a rocky path,... that you followed at your own risk to the last remaining pieces of the once giant gletcher.
Addenum : On November 11, 2000, the cable train caught fire in which 155 people were killed.
That was the last time as far as I remember that the once majestic gletcher caught the news.
Extreme damage by water in the Alps mid seventies.
I remember (those days never seen) floodings in the village of Brixen im Thale (Austria Tirol). I was old enough to help "the men" build dams alongside the main street and young enough to be forced to go hide when it got really dangerous. The local tiny mountainstream (the Lauterbach), turned into a giant flood in a matter of minutes after extreme heavy rain fall thundered down the Alps. The ravaging force of water coming down the mountain brutally took over the main street. I remember a wall of water carrying trees and boldering rocks. Still smell the adrenaline among the farmers (and tourists that understood the gravity / gave a helping hand) protecting their homes and land with wooden dams and anything they could find to force the flood into one direction (obviously downhill). They had never seen such violence of nature in these extreme proportions before. I also remember that some tourists found it exiting (Disneyland) until panique struck the locals and woman and children were forced to go upstairs in the most solid house of the neighbourhood - safe(?) behind their dams.
One could say that accidents with nature can always happen but it was never seen in such proportions at the time in that area. As a child, I was amazed by the brutal force of nature, amazed by the courage of humans when thing go wild. Amazed how some got parallyzed by fear, others bezerk by fear. (I'll write more on my website nondisputandum.com or blog about adrenaline in the near future.)
Action for today :
Chill out and take a hot bath.
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