Posted on 10/21/2004 5:15:54 PM PDT by NCjim
Climate researchers are warning that wide areas of Northern Europe can get much colder winters if a strong, new 'El Niño' effect takes root in the Pacific Ocean. Norway can end up with Siberian conditions.
Swiss researchers, backed by Norwegian colleagues, were due to unveil their findings this week. They based their work on research done on the period 1940-42, when Northern Europe experienced bitterly cold winters.
During those winters, snow fell heavily in England, ships froze in ice along the usually ice-free coast of Norway and it was so cold in Oslo that schools were forced to close.
"The very cold winters are thought to have been caused by the strongest 'El Niño' the world saw during the 1900s, and which occurred at the same time," Georg Hansen of the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (Norsk institutt for luftforskning) told newspaper Aftenposten.
Hansen and researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute and the University of Oslo have contributed to the Swiss study, and support their conclusions that a new 'El Niño' can result in a new round of bitterly cold winters.
"Instead of a milder winter climate, we can experience the opposite," he said.
'El Niño' is the name given to the phenomenon that occurs when normally chilly ocean currents that move from South America over the tropical portion of the Pacific suddenly reverse. Resulting changes in the weather often occur around Christmas, with dry areas getting heavy rain and rainy areas going dry.
"We normally don't see a connection between El Niño and European weather, but it's possible that if it comes over a certain level, it will have consequences here," Hansen said.
Norway can face winters like those in Siberia if the Pacific gets a strong El Nino.
Paging Al Gore...
Ptarmigans will like it. They will dominate over the rabbits.
But but but......what about global warming??
Seriously, out here in Santa Cruz we're having a really really COLD Indian Summer. And I know that we're entering an El Nino cycle. Brrrrr!
So much for that global warming hoax. I'm sure the greenies will bring back the myth that our increasing pollution is blocking the sun. Bunch of morons.
You don't get it do you? These nastier winters are caused by global warming. :^)
You don't get it do you? These nastier winters are caused by global warming. :^)
The European global warming claims will reverse El Nino, no doubt.
PS - How'd you get that little doohickey over the n?
Just another beneficial effect of El Nino....
It was in the article title that I copied and pasted.
I've been complaining about the same thing 40 miles north of you. After a cold summer we have had virtually no Indian Summer, maybe three really nice days. After that last storm we're pretty sure that we won't burn to death this season, but I miss the beautiful October we usually have. It's Al Gore's fault.
That makes a reversal about every 35 years - I wonder what data points exist before 1942?
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For instance: Niño will cause result: Niño
For more info: Go Here
(Scroll down)
Records prior to 1948 deteriorate rapidly with age. Temperature data for Alaska, the state most affected by the oscillation, is of notoriously poor quality (with little station continuity) in the early 20th century.
Worse, the paleoclimatic evidence and station records that do exist suggest that the oscillation was damped significantly during the 19th century. Of course, this phenomenon helps to explain the warm weather since 1978 in Alaska. If indeed the oscillation were damped in the 19th century, this phenomenon alone probably explains almost all of the effects that The New York Times attributes to "global warming."
Some models actually show the shift in 1946 instead of 1942. Given the data, it's not easy to tell.
'El Niño'
I use a 1970 IBM Selectric Composer to do that.
Thanks. How do you find all this "stuff"?
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