204. Extreme Winter

Extreme Winter

Stephen C Stearns' course about Evolution, Ecology and Behavior is getting more and more amazing.   I just watched lecture 24 about Climate and the Distribution of Life on Earth.

http://www.cosmolearning.com/video-lectures/climate-and-the-distribution-of-life-on-earth-6708/

This lecture was held in the spring of 2009.    Stearns has made an amazing prediction:

There's a very important spot where water from the Arctic Ocean, coming down from Greenland, is sinking near the Gulf Stream here. And it's one of the real current issues in global warming as to whether or not this point up here or this--actually it's not a point--this whole sheet of sinking water is going to remain stable.

Because if it doesn't remain stable, and this moves south, then the Gulf Stream will get blocked and basically England, France and Spain are going to end up with a climate which is like that of Northern Canada; very quickly. That is something that could happen in a couple of years, if this thing tips.

The distance between Mönchengladbach, where I live, and the North Sea with the Gulf Stream, is less than 200 miles of flat country.   As a consequence, the climate here is usually fairly mild, I remember winters without any snow.   
Now all of a sudden, we had an entire month of snow (pictures in entry 188) and the temperature was around and most of the time below freezing. 
It had not been like this as long as I am living here.