Another school of thought
It's not a given that climate change will warm things up in Britain. "We may end up being plunged into a new ice age," says Dr Neville Hollingworth, Climate Change Programme Leader at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. "The reason why Britain enjoys a mild or temperate climate is due to the North Atlantic Drift, which is this warm surface water that comes up from the Caribbean. That current is driven by different density of sea water. If the ice caps melt it could effectively switch off this circulation pattern and as a consequence warm surface waters wouldn’t get to the British Isles, and subsequently the temperatures would drop. The effects of this on the UK climate would be catastrophic."
"In terms of what we would see would be a climate more akin to what you see in Newfoundland today. Cold, stormy winters, incredible storms, and also the summers would probably be quite cold, and we’d have increased snow fall, and subsequently things like ice flows could be seen in the English Channel." Hollingworth adds there is uncertainty as to whether this is a local thing that’s only happening over a short term or it’s a trend caused by the effects of climate change.
"It may be that the Newfoundland area may end up with a warmer climate and we’ll end up with a cold climate because we don’t have a warm current. I think ninety per cent of people think that the opposite will be true, that we’ll end up with a warmer climate. The North Atlantic Drift will continue no doubt for quite some time."
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