No new ice age for western Europe

By Aussiegirl

Well, that's a relief -- hang up the mukluks for now. I wish they'd make up their minds -- is the world going to burn or freeze? Are we heating up or cooling down? I guess if you are a climatophobe there is always something to worry about. Keeps you from worrying about the little stuff -- like the imminent takeover of Western civilization by the Muslim hordes.

No new ice age for western Europe - earth - 04 November 2006 - New Scientist

FEARS that a shutdown of ocean currents is about to plunge Europe into a mini ice age receded last week. New measurements have failed to show clear evidence that the current is weakening, and models of the North Atlantic show that a shutdown would not occur in the way oceanographers had expected.

Currents in the North Atlantic, dominated by the Gulf Stream, carry warm water north from the tropics towards Europe. During the winter, this water warms the westerly winds travelling from America, keeping the climate in western Europe milder than it would otherwise be.

The circulation is driven by density differences in the water arising from variations in temperature and salinity. Global warming reduces temperature differences, because higher latitudes warm more than the tropics, and salinity differences could be affected by increased meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet flowing into the sea. Climatologists had feared that together these factors ...