Ice Age for Britain

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Ice Age for Britain

Post by Beithir Seun »

Just thought I'd share this, simply because it amazes me :D


Here is a satellite picture of the UK taken on 7th January:

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The whole country is white :D

I know you Scandinavians are probably thinking this is no big deal, but this is the most complete "white Christmas" we've had for decades :P


(As an aside, you can also tell just how filthy the Bristol Channel is as well :confused:)
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by ArchMagosAlchemys »

Interesting to note the lack of snow in Eire and the way the cities stand out.

Here in Atlanta, which about the same latitude as Casablanca, Baghdad, or Nagasaki, the lows are about -12 and the highs 0 ish. This is causing treacherous melt/freeze cycles causing lots of black ice and significant road carnage (and truckage and plain wreckage)
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Herald »

Wow. Ice age quickly comes to mind, indeed. Except for the Green island! :D Most of football matches were postponed I heard, but the Iron boys from Scunthorpe ('my' english fc) still beat Derby 4-1 away! Woohoo! (A little OT there.) But, seriously, how does this affect you in England? Although it seems to be pretty tough everywhere. Ozzies! What's it like down under?? (Too tired now to check...) It's pretty cold in scandinavia, too, but we should be used to it. In the 70's and 80's that was just winter: throughout jan and feb -10 to -20 C. At least everything was frozen, it's worse when things freeze and melt again and again, as AMA's saying. It's all about water...

And I have to keep spreading this message, sorry if you already heard it: When I was studying 'environment sciences' in the early -90s, there was one thing the meteorologists could predict from an increased greenhouse effect, and that was more unpredictable and extreme weather. And from my experience that's exactly what we have seen the last twenty years. More violent hurricanes, more droughts, floods, heatwaves and now suddenly half the planet is frozen. :smirk:

So, if everyone here can take a piece of the Asrai attitude (no, I'm not talking about sniping polluters! :D ) into their daily lives, our 'forest' will be a much safer place for the next generations. :nod:
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by czar05 »

Herald wrote:Ozzies! What's it like down under??
Not too sure about the rest of Australia but here in Queensland, its a typical Aussie Summer- Hot :D
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Herald »

You bastiches! :wasted: :D
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Telcontar »

And I have to keep spreading this message, sorry if you already heard it: When I was studying 'environment sciences' in the early -90s, there was one thing the meteorologists could predict from an increased greenhouse effect, and that was more unpredictable and extreme weather. And from my experience that's exactly what we have seen the last twenty years. More violent hurricanes, more droughts, floods, heatwaves and now suddenly half the planet is frozen. :smirk:

So, if everyone here can take a piece of the Asrai attitude (no, I'm not talking about sniping polluters! :D ) into their daily lives, our 'forest' will be a much safer place for the next generations. :nod:
Due to Global Warming Europe will actually be getting colder at first.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Naggie »

As a scandinavian, I feel obliged to mock the Brits for their fear of snow. I know you're not used to this kind of weather and you don't have dubs on your cars or ploughs on stand-by during the winter, so the whole thing is unknown for you. But I read something Voodoomaster linked me to a few days ago. It snowed a whopping 30cm in the UK somewhere in one evening and they closed down 550 schools. For us here in Sweden, 30cm is still nothing. When it snows 30cm every evening of a week, traffic stops working (but schools never close). My initial reaction was of course "What? 30cm of snow?! That's still something you can take a shovel and get rid of! No need to close 550 school." But, alas, you Brits never knew what a real winter is about.

Here in Sweden, we have laws saying that you'll get a rather severe fine if your motor vehicle don't have dubs between 1st of December and last of January, I believe. And our trucks are built to be able to clear the roads (without being the gas-guzzling SUVs of the Americans, mind you ;)). Ah well, different countries have different protocols and standards. I bet there's not much in the drivers license textbooks in the UK on how to get your car out of a metre of snow :)

Up here, we have had -20 degrees C (253 K) for a few days. And there have been -40 degrees C (233 K) in our ski resorts. That is actually lethal if you stay out for more than 20 minutes or so.

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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by ArchMagosAlchemys »

The problem here in Atlanta is that this is so rare, that no one has snow tyres, chains, ploughs, or any other equipment, and even in Sweden, the freeze-melt cycle (which would probably be very rare) which produces sheets of very hard road ice covered by a cm of snow, would probably cause some chaos.

Teenage mortality is rising and they walk on the ice of ponds; something they have never seen, fall through and drown or freeze.

Our koi pond has mostly frozen over and ir has active moving water.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Telcontar »

Nagathi wrote:As a scandinavian, I feel obliged to mock the Brits for their fear of snow. I know you're not used to this kind of weather and you don't have dubs on your cars or ploughs on stand-by during the winter, so the whole thing is unknown for you. But I read something Voodoomaster linked me to a few days ago. It snowed a whopping 30cm in the UK somewhere in one evening and they closed down 550 schools. For us here in Sweden, 30cm is still nothing. When it snows 30cm every evening of a week, traffic stops working (but schools never close). My initial reaction was of course "What? 30cm of snow?! That's still something you can take a shovel and get rid of! No need to close 550 school." But, alas, you Brits never knew what a real winter is about.
You really need to visit Belgium once when it snows here :p . Only 10 cm and the whole country was a place of chaos and disorder.(really, this is not a joke)
and the week afterwards the same thing happen. the traffic is one big mess, the trains almost don't get to their destination and everyone begins to complain about the fact that it happens every time when we get more than 5 cm of snow. :D . I would really like to see Belgium covered by a few meters of it once.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Naggie »

ArchMagosAlchemys wrote:and even in Sweden, the freeze-melt cycle (which would probably be very rare) which produces sheets of very hard road ice covered by a cm of snow, would probably cause some chaos.
Indeed it does. However, the freeze-melt cycle is common. That happens for at least 2x2 weeks per year (two weeks when winter begins and two weeks when it starts to fade away). Recently, the temp has been between -20 and -10 (in Stockholm. -40 to -30 in northern Sweden), so no freeze-melt cycles have occurred.

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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Nyarlath »

Yup, kinda same here in Winland as in sweden. Althou for about past 10 days its been pretty solid -20 - 25 degrees. Atleast here in central winland.
At the moments it seems that it will come down to like 15 on next week. We'll see ^^

Atleast I hope it does so it will be more fun to goof around outside :D
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Finbulvetr »

I just came home from the weekend out...IN THE SNOW!!!!
We had 1m of snow from 800m and up! The thing is that main temperature is OK (0 or -2 must be lovely when compared with -15 and thus...), and air moisture isn't that high(60-70%). but it have been snowing for the last two days and so we've been able to enjoy proper snow this winter ^^
Oh, and all my body is sore from sliding down the slopes with plastic bags in the ass <.<

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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by ArchMagosAlchemys »

Even Malmo is 55 degrees North, what do you expect. I'm 33 degrees North!

How often does is snow down at the coast on Mallorca? With the warmth of the sea, I would have though that never happens.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Finbulvetr »

Snowfalls aren't unusual during coldest days of winter, precisely because of the sea. When a mass of cold air from northern Europe crosses the Mediterranean sea and hits the mountain range of the north (I swear is the most accurate translation of "Serra de Tramuntana", the name of said range :D) it normally leaves from 10 to even 60 cm of snow above 1000m or so...this normally happens end of january-beggining of february, but this year, this is the second time it snows, and these ammounts I've personally never seen :crazy:
I,ve posted a pic. Took it yesterday, at about 900m. OSL, and the mountain you can see (a little blurry :P) is Puig d'en Tomir, which is Mallorca's 4th highest peak. I'm still amazed with the landscape :nod:

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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by ArchMagosAlchemys »

OK. I missed the elevation. At 1000m, I can see how that might happen. Here in the US we have the Continental climate and the jet stream to cool things down.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Fossil Hunter »

I agree it has gotten colder, However our magnetic poles have yet to shift enough to make another IA. Just saying im no Paleoclimateologist or anyhting, I work with dead animals not weather.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

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Telcontar wrote:Due to Global Warming Europe will actually be getting colder at first.
Care to elaborate? (As in 'how'?)
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Fnord »

Here in Sweden, we have laws saying that you'll get a rather severe fine if your motor vehicle don't have dubs between 1st of December and last of January, I believe. And our trucks are built to be able to clear the roads (without being the gas-guzzling SUVs of the Americans, mind you ). Ah well, different countries have different protocols and standards. I bet there's not much in the drivers license textbooks in the UK on how to get your car out of a metre of snow
You need winter tires, but dubs are not that popular these days. They are in fact forbidden in some parts of Stockholm because of the amount of particles that they tear up from the road, that can be unhealthy.

This is most likely the 2nd coldest winter in my life (i'm 24) here in Stockholm, and while we sometimes have temperatures as low as -25C, it's rare for the temperature to stay that low. Now we have had -10C- -20C for several weeks, and more snow than what can be seen as common. At the moment it's only -9C, which almost feels hot after the low temperatures that we have been exposed to. Yet, nothing has closed and the only major problem that it has caused would be traffic related problems.

I must say tough that the UK looks beautiful when it's covered with snow.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Mist Walker »

I love that picture.

I don't think it's as bad as the media is making out though. My school closed for the one day before reopening (though I have a feeling this is due to the headteacher making a point)
Herald wrote:
Telcontar wrote:Due to Global Warming Europe will actually be getting colder at first.
Care to elaborate? (As in 'how'?)
Briefly: icecaps melt which messes up the ocean currents' temperatures. At least that's what I think is the case, not entirely sure though.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by ArchMagosAlchemys »

One scenario has the Gulf Stream and the Atlantic Conveyor failing, so warm water does not move toward Western Europe and the Eastern USA and cold water does not move away, cooling those areas resulting in significant average cooling for a century or so, even as the average for the world increases. OTOH, the cooler water ceases to emerge off Japan, and so that area of the Western Pacific warms up even more.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by mabelode »

Ahh snow. Thanks for the picture Beithir, I haven't seen any for a while.
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Ozzies! What's it like down under??
czar05 replied;
Not too sure about the rest of Australia but here in Queensland, its a typical Aussie Summer- Hot
I'd just like to follow that up with todays temp being a balmy 41 degrees here in the West, perfect drinking weather :sexy:
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by czar05 »

Yeah, its not that hot here :p
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Fnord »

Winters like this are not "that" uncommon. Last time was 2003 (I don't know how it was in the UK at that time, but here in sweden it was about as cold as it has been this winter, and slightly more snow). I think there were one or two winters like this during the 90s, and from what I have heard 87 or 88 had a horribly cold and snowy winter. We can't blame winters like this on climate change.

I'm not denying climate change, in fact I believe in the greenhouse effect, but I don't think that we should attribute all deviant weather on climate change.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by Beithir Seun »

Last time, the UK got snow for maybe a day or two before it all melted. This year was much much better/worse (depending on your perspective).


Personally, I think we can blame this on climate change. What I don't think is that it is all our fault, although that does not mean we shouldn't do anything about it. Climate change has been going on for millenia, and will continue to go on long after humans have been and gone in all likelihood. The problem is not climate change in and of itself, but the fact that the current state of human society is exacerbating climate change and not in a good way. Even ift we were all still Neanderthals, the polar ice caps would still be melting. The problem is the fact that we're not Neanderthals and are instead a highly developed and heavily industrialised society (with a naturally huge "carbon footprint") and thus are rapidly accelerating the rate at which the climate change is occurring.

On the whole, I think the biggest positive to come out of this is that people are getting more and more concerned with reducing the world's carbon emissions and things are starting to happen in that regard. We'll never stop climate change, and I'm not sure if some people understand that, but we should do everything we can to ensure it happens at it's natural rate rather than any super-accelerated rate due to things we as humans are doing.
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Re: Ice Age for Britain

Post by ArchMagosAlchemys »

Even so, we are trying to keep things 'as they are'; a big mistake in my view. Sea level rise/change is inevitable, climate change is inevitable, magnetic reveral is inevitable, failure of the Atlantic Conveyor is inevitable, a new Ice Age is almost inevitable (only almost because the last cycle might have ended), continental drift is inevitable.

When things are projected to exceed 'historic highs', I will get very concerned. I have no confidence in models that cannot predict the past reliably.
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