[fh] ice age instead?

G'day,

> > Has anyone any data?

A mini-ice age was thought to be the most likely consequence of human
pollution a couple of decades ago, though opinions on that one have
obviously changed now ;)
 
> There was a reference posted on www.jerrypournelle.com a few weeks ago
> which said, IIRC, that the Gulf Stream may be close to shutting down
> due to global warming, and as a result the northeastern US and Canada
> might get 5 degrees (F? C? don't recall) colder and northwestern
> Europe 10 degrees.  It was from an oceanographic study, IIRC

There's been a fair few models studies on this one, Andreas down here
has
had a pretty good look amongst others. There are a few links on this
one,
some useful non-technical ones can be found at
http://naturalscience.com/ns/cover/cover5.html

and
www.cicero.uio.no/media/1270.pdf

If it were to happen Europe would probably get colder more severe
winters,
but in the US its more likely just to counter balance the general
temperature rise. You're probably not going to see much of a general
increase in ice cover in the Western Atlantic and its probably not going
to
effect the Southern hemisphere much at all ice cover wise (as far as I
know
but this is not my primary field so it may be best to check that one
yourself). As the process of weakening the circulation system is a lot
slower than the rising temperatures (or so the models suggest so far),
if
anything does happen it isn't likely to happen at all until about the
time
the KV take an interest in us... ;)

Overall though climate change doesn't just equal everywhere gets hotter
etc.
There will be wide spread redistribution of climate patterns (some storm
bands being pushed poleward), with the general trend being toward more
severe extremes in each season... at least that's what they thought last
time I talked to Andreas, its a pretty fast moving field though and the
next
Nature article may well say something completely different ;)

Cheers

Beth