(Perhaps) A disturbing weather report from the "cold" north.

[praxiz]

I live in Norway, at 63° North longitude, (Anchorage, Alaska, is 61° 13' North). Yesterday it was 21° Celsius (about 70 F).

How about one or two of you carpool to work today?

[lectrobyte]

1. Think of all the money we are saving you in heating expenses!

Just trying to add some sarcasm/humor into the mix.

[meisje]

2. And all the free extra water we will have

[lastliberalintexas]

45. If only we had made that investment in desalinization plants

to make it potable.


On a more serious note, as a child I remember reading in National Geographic about the melting glaciers, and the story had a map showing what the world was projected to look like at some time in the future (I don't remember the timeline, as I was rather young). The thing I do remember is that SE Texas went from coastal plain to Under the Sea, and my hometown was gone.

I wonder if there are any newer models showing the experts' predictions? I might need to see where I should be moving!

[MadisonProgressive]

3. What, can't take the heat?

Our Great Leader says that global warming isn't real. Did you approve your post with our government censors?

[libhill]

7. He dares to defy the Great Shrub?

To question the pronouncements of His Imperial Chimpness? Seize the knave, take him away.

[mduffy31]

4. Nah

I am looking forward to Norway being like Florida in the future. It is only American of course.

:patriot:

[librechik]

41. for all American gas pigs, I apologize

I want to make changes. I have no representation. The Oil Companies own us.

Can you help us escape?

Alternatively, can I move there? I understand you have one of the finest Democracies on the planet. I wish we did.

[PowerToThePeople]

5. More Oil..

Cause, oil is located in the desert. If we make more deserts then there will be more oil, right? And then, with more oil, we can heat world up more for even more deserts.

Heh! I think I just discovered the "endless energy machine" that science says can not exist.

[praxiz]

6. Your logic is making my eyes bleed. NT

[mduffy31]

9. I am going to show ignorance here....

...but what the hell does NT mean. I see it all the time and I am trying to figure out what the hell it means.

[Burma Jones]

11. No text

Means there's only a subject line

[hatrack]

22. You should apply with a job with the Department of Energy

They're looking for creative thinkers like you!!! :evilgrin:

[praxiz]

8. Hey it's november and I'm walking to work in my sandals.

And we hosted the winter olympics many miles south of here, 11 years ago.

[libhill]

14. We all have sacrifices to make

for the greater glory of the American Empire and PNAC - get over it.

[mduffy31]

15. Well things change

You obviously are a fucking commie and deal with the changes. You must hate freedom.

[LeftHander]

24. Yeah but Norweigens wear sandals in winter....

Birkies with wool sox...

At least they do in Minnesota and N. Wisconsin...

:0)

[Burma Jones]

10. You obviously have too many farting cows.......

Why do you hate freedom???

[libhill]

20. Yeah,

I done bet he was with them thar Saydamn Whosane Eye - raq fellers what drove them airplanes into them building's in New York. Regular Terrorist feller. Probly likes them French folks, too.

[Lochloosa]

12. Makes it easier to drill in ANWAR

[babylonsister]

13. I defy anyone to tell me there are no

smartasses on DU! :crazy:
Is this the start of winter there? Here it seems as if the summers have been too hot and hurricane-ridden, but the winters are getting colder/weirder. It snowed here in TX last year, the first time in a long time. But the price of oil is going to start hurting everyone.
No answers, just an observation.
In honor of you, no driving for me today, praxiz!

[praxiz]

16. Excellent! Thank you.

If it makes you feel any better I have survived fine without a car or even a drivers lisence for 25 years.

I guess if I do this every day for the rest of my life .. make one person drop driving for one day, then I can delay the greenhouse effect by roughly 0,01 second.

[libhill]

27. Wha?

Tain't got no autymobile nor drivers licence? Whar ya keep yer gun rack at? Gotta have somewhars to store them assault rifles -????

[LeftHander]

17. I do carpool, I love Norway

....can I come and visit? Live?

one of those 3 generation Norweigens from Minnesota and the dakotas....

[bleedingheart]

18. my hubby carpooled twice this week and I worked from home twice

so we saved on that gas...

[HamdenRice]

19. Why do you Norwegians hate our freedom???

Seriously, thanks for the weather report. That's scary. Here in the US the newspapers have been reporting a lot about the melting of the polar ice cap.

Hey, wait a minute -- isn't your country pumping a lot of that North Sea oil that we burning up down here?

[praxiz]

21. Why yes, yes we do. :-)

Irony is a bitch, isn't it.

[HamdenRice]

26. As African-Americans say, what goes around comes around ...

and that applies to hydrocarbons, too!

[katinmn]

23. I hear you!

We experienced our first (that I'm aware of) air pollution alerts twice this summer. Minnesotans were told to avoid being outside on two beauiful summer days because of dangerous levels of pollutants.

We've had unseasonably warm temps this fall as well.

We had a decent public transportation system but our Republican governor and Republican controlled House has it woefully underfunded.

You'll be glad to know that our city streets are more crowded with bikers just within the last six months and even though it's turning cooler, more people are biking to and from work.

I work at home so I am driving very little.

It's not much, but it's something.

[EuroObserver]

25. What's the Norwegian take on possible Gulf Stream failure, praxiz?

(aka. Atlantic Conveyor). I believe there's a probable tipping-point there that will render NW Europe considerably colder in the winter...

[Crayson]

35. Alaska climate

If you turn off the gulf stream you get a continental (from Russia, Sibiria) climate in Northern Europe during winters.

That is MUCH colder than right now.

Thank you, cozy warming Gulf Stream!

[EuroObserver]

43. Indeed. Some links:

From New Scientist 05 July 2005 http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn7632

<snip>

The Exeter {Blair-promoted, Feb 2005} conference failed to define dangerous climate change. But it did catalogue a series of potentially sudden and disastrous changes to planetary processes that could arise with a warming of between 1°C and 3°C, including:

• runaway melting of ice caps causing eventual sea level rises of many metres;

• the shutdown of ocean currents like the Gulf Stream;

• conversion of the planet’s ecosystems from absorbers of greenhouse gas emissions into giant emitters.

In March 2005, the European Union, which includes 4 of the G8 nations, agreed that it would be dangerous to let global warming exceed 2°C. It has already warmed 0.6°C since pre-industrial times. But because of time-lags in the natural systems, such as the thermal inertia of the oceans, the world could be within a decade of becoming unavoidably committed to an eventual 2°C warming.

</snip>

From "The Heat Before the Cold" By Terrence Joyce (Ocean and Climate Change Institute, NYT April 18, 2002) http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/abruptclimate_joyce_oped.html

<snip>

Here’s what might happen: In the North Atlantic, a 10-foot layer of fresh water - some of which may be coming from melting ice in the Arctic - has been accumulating and lowering the salinity of the ocean to depths of more than a mile for the past 30 years. Fresh water in the ocean may not sound cataclysmic, but it can upset the ocean currents that are the key to our planet’s climate control system.

...

Under normal circumstances, the famous warm waters of the Gulf Stream, carrying heat absorbed in the tropics, move up the East Coast of the United States and southeastern Canada and then angle toward Europe, warming the overlying atmosphere and surrounding land as they go. As the Gulf Stream system carries warm, salty water north, the atmosphere cools it, making it dense enough to sink to great depths. The plunge of that great volume of water helps propel a global system of currents sometimes called the great ocean conveyor. But add too much fresh water, and North Atlantic waters become less salty and less dense. They stop sinking. The Gulf Stream slows or is redirected southward. Winters in the North Atlantic region get significantly colder.

Changes in the conveyor were responsible for some of the most noticeable climate changes in scientific history. About 12,000 years ago, as the earth emerged from the most recent Ice Age and the North Atlantic region warmed, an influx of fresh water - perhaps from melting ice sheets - shut down the great conveyor and plunged much of the Northern Hemisphere back into ice-age conditions that lasted 1,000 years. About 500 years ago a reduction of the ocean conveyors may have turned the climate in northern Europe and the northeastern United States much colder, during what became known as the Little Ice Age, which lasted for about 300 years. In America, the Little Ice Age coincided with the notorious winter at Valley Forge.

</snip>

The BBC seems confused: http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/impact/gulf_stream.shtml

<snip>

Today, the Greenland ice sheet is more stable {huh?}, but an increase in global temperatures (and therefore melting sea ice) and precipitation may add more fresh water to the north Atlantic, similar to what happened at the end of the last Ice Age.

Current climate models predict that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, the component of the gulf stream driven by the differences in water density is likely to decrease by 25% in the next 100 years. As the gulf stream becomes weaker, it may become less stable and therefore be more likely to shut down completely in the future.

A reduced gulf stream would mean that less heat is brought to north-west Europe and therefore harsher winters. However, current climate model predictions are confident that the increase in temperatures resulting from an increase in greenhouse gas emissions is much greater than the potential cooling effect, so a cooling of the UK climate is unlikely this century.

</snip>

[CornField]

28. Haven't driven all week

The weather has been way too nice for me not to continue to ride the bike. (November in Iowa and I was wearing shorts & a t-shirt yesterday!)

[Burma Jones]

29. hey, if it is warming up, maybe I'll move the family there

Are there 24 hour convenience stores? Are you basically like Canada or Minnesota, only with less funny accents? Are your Women as hot as Swedish Women? Can you get good Mexican Food? What's it like living in such close proximity to the detested French? Are you all into Ikea? Why don't you embrace the King of Sports - American Football? Is Lutefisk real, or a myth designed to frighten swarthy peoples? What is your national dumpling? Are all the Quislings gone? Are Fjords as beautiful as they are awkwardly spelled?

And most important - What's it like living in a rational, reasoned nation?

[libhill]

33. He ain't got no fjord-

feller done siad he's got no auto-mobile, fjord, chevy, or 'tother wise.

[praxiz]

36. Ok, that's a lot of questions, lets see:

"Are there 24 hour convenience stores? "

Not the large ones, but we have 7-11 and 24 hour gas stations that are stocked as small convenience stores.

"Are you basically like Canada or Minnesota, only with less funny accents? "

Uhm, no. We are not like Canada or Minnesota. We are similar in the ways that we are generally humanoid and friendly.

"Are your Women as hot as Swedish Women? "

No, but Swedish women are as hot as Norwegian women.

"Can you get good Mexican Food? "

Well I don't think I would enjoy authentic mexican cooking, so I'm going to say no.

"What's it like living in such close proximity to the detested French?"

Very nice, actually. They don't travel a lot though so we mostly get Japanese and German tourists.

"Are you all into Ikea?"

No, but they're here anyway.

"Why don't you embrace the King of Sports - American Football?"

Go f*** yourself :)

"Is Lutefisk real, or a myth designed to frighten swarthy peoples?"

It's real and actually not that bad. It's basically fish that's been hung to dry for a few weeks and then soaked in lye until it gets that yummy jellyfish-look and feel.

"What is your national dumpling?"

Ew, don't think we have one.

"Are all the Quislings gone?"

We only needed one, and he's was executed 60 years ago. (Our last execution, hopefully)

"Are Fjords as beautiful as they are awkwardly spelled?"

It's rock and water. Judge for yourself.

[Burma Jones]

39. What a Country.....

I do come from Viking stock - via Scotland......

Thanks for your answers, and I like the picture......

[Ex Lion Tamer]

42. Sorry, but I'm not buying the Lutefisk line.

But everything else looks wonderful!

[HereSince1628]

30. Geez, we send our warmest greetings to you. . .

and what do we get? Criticism.

Ok, just for that we are sending you MORE of those British tourists!

[MojoXN]

31. I live at roughly 40 degress north latitude...

And its 21 degrees Celsius (70 Fahrenheit), here, too! Unheard of this late in the year. Global Warming... it's here to stay!

MojoXN

[demnan]

32. I carpool

with three white male Republicans. Needless to say, I'm trying to do my part!

[praxiz]

37. Your sacrifice will go unnoticed, I promise you. :) NT

[Crayson]

34. 63° North longitude... sounds cold, but Gulf Stream keeps you warm.

Just before everybody else panics !!
Think! And read up!

It's common knowledge that similar longitudes in the American continent are MUCH MUCH colder than in Europe.
Yes this HAS to do with climate but not with climate CHANGE.

It's because Alaska has a continental climate (hot in summer, freezing in winter) and Sweden/Norway have a moderate climate made by the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream which heats up norther Europe since millenia (thank you gulfstream, else that would all be covered by perma ice!)

Now, let me say that climate change concerns me too, but don't let just any message give you a heart attack.


Wikipedia:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream>

The Gulf Stream, also known as the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico, exits through the Strait of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland. The Gulf Stream was the first element to be identified of the global oceanic thermohaline circulation. The Gulf Stream has a modifying influence on the climate of the east coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland It is influential on the climate of the east coast of Florida, especially southeast Florida helping to keep temperatures warmer than in the rest of the southeastern United States in the winter. In summer the effect is opposite but small. The Gulf Stream makes the climate of offshore islands of Massachusetts, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, milder than than that of Massachusetts Bay, which is isolated from its effects by Cape Cod.

Its extension toward Europe, called the North Atlantic drift, makes Western Europe (and especially Northern European winters) considerably warmer than they otherwise would be. For example, in January, the temperature difference between coastal Norway and northern parts of continental Canada is approximately 30 °C on average, even if they are the same latitude.

[warrens]

38. It's going to hit 70 in Chicago today too

Think I'll go buy me a hummer.

[myrna minx]

40. I'm a Norwegian American, living in Minnesota

who doesn't own a car and walks to work. I wanna hug! :o

[MadisonProgressive]

44. Yah, der hey!

:hug:

[myrna minx]

46. Awww...thanks!

:hug: