Western Europe may get colder as a result of global warming, because the melting Arctic ice cap is cooling off the warm ocean current that is largely responsible for Europe's mild weather, scientists and environmentalists said.
If the ice cap in Greenland and the Arctic continues to melt at its current rate, Europe's temperatures would take a sharp dip after five or more decades of increasingly warm weather. That turnaround could spell trouble for regions that by then will have adapted to more tropical conditions, experts said on Friday at a UN climate change conference.
"To mitigate the advancement, the increase, the acceleration of that warming, we would need to take really radical steps, far more extreme than the [protocol on global warming] is proposing," said Jonathan Bamber of the University of Bristol.
Bamber said increased influxes of water from the Arctic could trigger a slowdown or diversion of the Gulf Stream, the current that sweeps warm water from the Gulf of Mexico up to the North Atlantic, warming the waters and climate of Western Europe.
Bamber also said that in the next five years, Europe could expect increasingly hazardous conditions in the Alps.
Last summer was the first ever that the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc were closed for fear of rocks loosened by melted ice and snow.
And during Europe's record heat wave this summer, 10 percent of the "permanent" ice in the Italian Alps melted away, said Damiano Di Simine, president of the Italian chapter of the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps.
He told reporters that 1.5 billion cubic meters of fresh water had been lost, a resource critical to northern Italy's water-intensive crops, such as rice.
"But every year we lose large quotas of water, between five and 10 percent of the Alpine ice, so within about 20 or 30 years, well lose it all," he said.
Earlier this week, the UN Environment Program issued a report saying that global warming was threatening the world's ski resorts, with melting snow at lower altitudes forcing the sport to move higher and higher up mountains, and threatening to make downhill skiing disappear altogether at some resorts.
Despite the grim prognosis, panelist Bill Hare, Climate Policy Director of Greenpeace International, cited European efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions as significant progress toward implementing policies and technologies that can slow climate change.
The Kyoto Treaty calls for countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming. The UN conference is grappling with the possibility that the pact might never come into force because the US has rejected it and Russia hasn't ratified it.
"The hardest and most fundamental problem to be overcome is the US at present," Hare said.
"And unless and until the US starts to move, everyone else will be that much slower," he said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not