UKH

What happens to weather in Ireland and the UK?

Becomes like that of Newfoundland.

This was a subject of one of the many Horizon "we're all doomed" programmes in the 70s and 80s. It ought to have been mentioned in the recent thread...

Gets a heck of a lot colder.

Guaranteed Winter seasons where everything is in nick from October to March 

Depends how quickly the gulf stream slows down and stops v what stage global warming has got to by then.

So if delayed enough it might not make things colder (just stop/slow local global warming).

There was a programme about 10 (?) years ago which did scenarios, what if the gulf stream stopped now, in 20 years, in 40 years, something like that.

The 1650 Little Ice Age gives us a clue. But it could be much worse.

Have we missed our subscription? Bloody brexit

No more Caribbean fish and chips

Wasn’t that called “The Day After Tomorrow”

Which presumably means somewhere else gets a heck of a lot warmer!

I saw this a few days ago which suggests it may already be changing.

“These results reveal spatially consistent empirical evidence that, in the course of the last century, the AMOC may have evolved from relatively stable conditions to a point close to a critical transition.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01097-4

It made either the beeb or a mainstream online paper, can't remember which.

Basically it was saying that the AMOC (underwater current that "returns" the gulf stream) has two stable modes, fast and slow.

It's been in stable fast mode for some time but the evidence gathered shows instability which may mean it's about to go into stable slow mode.

But of course nobody knows exactly what this will precipitate or when or how long it will take etc. However there doesn't appear to be much disagreement that the effects will be very significant and wide ranging.

I briefly passed over some modelling suggesting a significant reduction in rainfall and 3.5C lower average temps.  With the effect falling off north to south.  Came with a rather dramatic drop in arable land area.

See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-crisis-scientis...

based in part on an article in Nature Climate Change (link in Mark Edwards' post above)

Wouldn't most the temperature drop off be in winter?

I'm pretty sure that you're right, and summers would be hotter. The UK climate could start to resemble British Columbia which this summer hasn't been pretty. Not that many  trees in the UK though so wildfire should be a bit less dramatic 

It stops every winter for parts of Northern Europe already, or rather its course changes. It would be permanently below zero for a few months etc.. imagine those uk winters where it was cold , make it colder and longer.  

What happens to the midges?

                       too hot for them?

                        too cold for them so they all get killed off during longer colder winters?

                        or wetter and a wee bit warmer so more of them?

I'm not convinced a cold winter has any effect on them. Dry spells are what we need, but no idea what the likelihood of that is if we lose the gulf stream.

I'd say there are noticeably fewer midges this year than normal. Last night, after a swim in loch Venachar, we all stood around in a sheltered car park, surrounded by trees and no wind, and chatted for at least half an hour. Not even a hint of a midge. This was heading towards sunset. This dry summer up to now really has made an impact!

Which matters rather more than reliable fat ice for 4 months.

More dragonflies than I've ever seen, though.