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Science

Rocky Mountains Keep Europe Warm 32

Posted by michael from the idiot-cheese dept.
fldvm writes "The Earth Institute at Columbia University says that the rocky mountains are more responsible than the gulf stream for mild winters in Europe. See the press release, or google cache. The long held assumption had been that the warm water of the Gulf stream makes Western Europe warmer than Canada and and other parts at the same latitude. The researchers said that with computer models they removed the Gulf Stream and Europe stayed warm but when they flattened the mountains over North America the Eastern US was warmer and Europe was colder. "
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Rocky Mountains Keep Europe Warm More

Rocky Mountains Keep Europe Warm

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  • Good to know, now let's flatten those bastards because I froze my ass off this winter!

  • So (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Lord_Of_The_Beer ( 527765 )
    Anyone know how this affects the theroy that Global Warming, might shut down the Gulf stream and plunge the northern Hemisphere into more severe winters?

    LOTB

    • Re:So (Score:5, Insightful)

      by melquiades ( 314628 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @12:51PM (#5598121) Homepage
      Anyone know how this affects the theroy that Global Warming, might shut down the Gulf stream and plunge the northern Hemisphere into more severe winters?

      Before this finding about the Rockies: That theory about the Gulf Stream really sounds like wild speculation.

      After this finding about the Rockies: That theory about the Gulf Stream really sounds like wild speculation.

      Global warming is fairly strongly established at this point, but its actual effects -- even at macroscopic levels -- still remain terrifyingly unknown. Most scientists aren't managing much better than wild speculation. But it's all a moot question, since we get to find out through a nice fun emperical global experiment over the next thousand years!

      • Re:So (Score:2, Funny)

        by Zaak ( 46001 )
        Global warming is fairly strongly established at this point, but its actual effects -- even at macroscopic levels -- still remain terrifyingly unknown.

        You knew that global warming was the only thing staving off the next ice age right? (see Fallen Angels by Larry Niven)

        TTFN
        • You knew that global warming was the only thing staving off the next ice age right? (see Fallen Angels by Larry Niven)

          When making claims about climatology, a reference to a scientific work - even a something of popular science rather than peer-reviewed journals - would be far more appropriate than science fiction.

          • Re:So (Score:1)

            by Zaak ( 46001 )
            a reference to a scientific work...would be far more appropriate than science fiction.

            #include <stdhumor.h>

            TTFN

    • Re:So (Score:4, Insightful)

      by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:30PM (#5600763)
      Nobody knows, and it isn't really relevant to the discussion about climate change or climate change policies.

      We have no idea what large amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will do to weather in Europe, the US, or anywhere else. We have no idea either what they will do to sea levels or plant life. But we do know that it is quite plausible that they will have big effects and that it is quite plausible that those effects won't be good. We also know that getting rid of excessive carbon dixoide from the atmosphere may take decades or centuries.

      The conservative thing to do is to reduce our emissions to more historical levels which we know are safe, as opposed to engaging in a wild experiment on a global scale and see what happens.

  • Speculative (Score:4, Insightful)

    by amcguinn ( 549297 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:22AM (#5597442) Journal

    Leaving aside the headlines, the text of the press release reads "Research suggests..."

    This is good work, and part of the huge and valuable process of improving our understanding of climate, but it's quite possible that some group will run a different computer model tomorrow and come up with the opposite result.

    We'll know that climate modelling is starting to "get there" when they're able to make accurate predictions about the effects of things like volcanic eruptions and solar fluctuations.

    • All these models are based on chaos theory, i.e. a small change in the input may cause huge changes in the output (butterfly in asia, thunderstorm in europe - you know the drill). Thus just altering a very small parameter may mean a *very* long (>1000 years) winter in Europe. The biggest problem with this is that this small parameter change may be a rounding error, i.e. the reality means winter, the rounded simulated result means grapes growing in northen Sweden.

  • Butterflies (Score:4, Funny)

    by oni ( 41625 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:26AM (#5597456) Homepage
    Are they sure? I always thought it was the butterflies in central park that determined the weather in Europe. Oh wait, no, I'm thinking of hurricanes

  • Flatten them (Score:2, Troll)

    by regen ( 124808 )
    Well, I live on the east coast of the US, and after this winter, I say flatten the Rockies. Plus, it teach those europeans not to threaten to veto the US in the UN security council.
    • Ditto. It was a cold winter. I wouldn't mind a warmer climate :)
      • this article [nytimes.com] talks about global warming and, of all things, allergies. Does anybody have anything on weather geographical changes can also really affect this? (If an earthquake drops the rockies, do we suddenly not have to renew our clarinex scrips?) this one [whrc.org] talks about global warming in general. You can scoff in a few years from your new beachfront property ...in Wisconsin...

        but seriously, i agree that it's all almost irrelevant, since we're going to find out sooner than we expect.

    • George Bush: "The plan to flatten the...erm, mountain range is going well... it, however, it is taking a little longer than expected. No worries, though, because we're gonna nuke those evil mountains for as long as it takes to flatten them and show those European bastards who's boss!" -(Who's boss? I say Kevin Smith.) Honestly, I really wouldn't be suprised. What next, the icebergs "because they make all the water near them all cold and...kill fishes and stuff?"
    • Nice idea if you can convieniently forget the 14, count them, 14, US vetos of UN security council resolutions over Israel's recent behaviour.

      Don't forget:

      If it wasn't for the French you'd be English.

      If it wasn't for the English you'd still be in England.

      And if it wasn't for the USA the French would be German.

      You need to get a global perspective. And a grip.

  • lets bulldoze the mountans!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Unknown Poltroon ( 31628 ) <unknown_poltroon1sp@myahoo.com> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:56AM (#5597584)
    We can make them into "freedom plains" to freeze france!!!

  • cold Europe (Score:2, Insightful)

    by WINSTANLEY ( 229048 )
    It sounds like this contradicts the role of the Gulf stream in controlling the onset of Ice Ages
    in the popular climate models. Are these fact incompatible?
  • Jerry Bruckheimer, or else some horrible summer movie will be made where we threaten to level the mountains and Bruce Willis has to single handedly save the day by trading his life for the weather of Western Europe. We'll call it "The Peak" or "Plateau" or something.
  • I smell profit!
  • if we just bulldoze the Rocky Mountains we could reduce our dependence on foreign heating oil and devastate French agriculture [info-france-usa.org] at the same time.

    I bet the oil companies know how the Rockies keep the US dependant on heating oil and that is why they started this [sierraclub.org] puppet organization.

  • What if they flattened the Rocky Mountains AND stopped the Gulf Stream? Don't just think big, think GLOBAL!
  • What about northern europe? I.e. britain and skandinavia, I couldn't find any diagrams of the theoretical effect if the rockies weren't there. Britain and Norway both are said to have mild weather due to the gulf stream (or were previously said) I wondered how big an effect the air convection due to the rockies has on these countries.

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