Ho Ho Ho, No Snow for Europe

Last month the climate news was about the gulf stream stalling out that will send Europe into a deep freeze. This month's news is just the opposite as the warmest winter ever hits Europe with arctic ice coverage at record lows and little to any snow falling in Europe.


- Climate change threatens ski resorts in Europe Swissinfo
- Europe gets its mildest winter for a century Euronews
- Europe 's going green (that's due to lack of snow) This is London

2006 was marked as the 6th warmest on record and the 10 warmest years have occured since 1995. The consistent trend has been temperatures increasing, so don't count on global cooling anytime soon especially since we are just starting the new solar cycle.

[edit on 17-12-2006 by Regenmacher]

I never know to what to make of it all, one day we're being told we're all going to be living in a future climate similar to that of Norway, Sweden and Finland, the next day we're being told to expect something similar to that of Spain.

From what I understand, the UK is going to get colder due to the gulf stream losing its effect because of fresh water currently being held up as ice melting and mixing with the salt water seas, throwing the gulf stream out of wack and stopping the warmer currents reaching the UK.

But with warmer weather seeming to be the trend in the UK I'm not sure whose right and whose wrong.

Could it be a possibility that we're going to suffer warmer weather up until the gulf stream fails then face a colder climate?

You can't look at short term trends or anomalies when it comes to global climate. If you increase the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, over a long period of time, then you are likely going to have global warming, dependant on the concentration of heat trapping greenhouse gases. During a long term warming event, there can be oddly cold periods, and oddly warm periods, that have nothing to do with the over all trend.

Here you have just that, an overall warming trend in part of the graph, made up of highs and lows.


This is the problem with people freaking out over unseasonably warm or unseasonably cold weather in any particular year. It frightens people, but has no demonstrated connection to large scale global events. After scaring people, the temperature goes the other way, and they figure that the researchers don't know what they are taking about, and start ignoring the problem.