Climate change isn't just global warming…

What have SSY been up to lately? Well, the weather hasn’t exactly encouraged doing much aside from huddling to keep warm. In the meantime, it’s important to bear in mind that, despite the cold in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, it’s still quite likely that 2010 will be one of the hottest years on record. If you’ve encountered folk in everyday life who are as daft as John Redwood, then be sure to point them in the direction of this Monbiot article on the Guardian site.

In fact, one of the important points to remember about climate change is that it makes the future highly unpredictable. One of the possible consequences, disruption of ocean currents like the Gulf Stream, could actually lead to the removal of a factor that helps keep the British Isles temperate. An unusual set of circumstances that has led to exactly that appears to be the cause of our current cold snap. The current situation is just an unusual freak event, but in fact global warming in the tropics actually pushes water north that by the time it reaches us is pretty cold. The Gulf Stream is thought to have slowed 30% in the last 12 years. The past couple of weeks for those of us in Scotland could really be a taste of how winters might get in years to come.