Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Atlantic conveyor shutdown unlikely, says IPCC

According to the NY Times:

OSLO — Mainstream climatologists who have feared that global warming could have the paradoxical effect of cooling northwestern Europe or even plunging it into a small ice age have stopped worrying about that particular disaster, although it retains a vivid hold on the public imagination.

The idea, which held climate theorists in its icy grip for years, was that the North Atlantic Current, an extension of the Gulf Stream that cuts northeast across the Atlantic Ocean to bathe the high latitudes of Europe with warmish equatorial water, could shut down in a greenhouse world.
I guess we can stop worrying about that, then. But darn it, wasn't the debate supposed to be over? The science settled? Has anybody asked the Goracle about this?

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