A “small ice age”

“No realistic adaptation measure can face such fast temperature changes under a collapse” of the Gulf current. In recent years we have discussed a lot about The weakening of the AMOC and about the consequences that, especially for EuropeI could have all this.

And yet That study phrase that returned the old fear of the researchers to the fore: the one that says that we do what we do, THE END OF THE AMOC It would be a catastrophe of unsuspected proportions.

Everything will happen too fast. The amoc is The oceanic flow that runs from north to south in the North Atlantic basin. The process begins with sinking to the cold water background in front of Greenland and the movement of this south. The replacement of that water with a warmer (which flows on the surface to the north) allows to transfer heat from the Gulf from Mexico to Europe.

The cold comes. The problem is that the importance of this current in Europe is capital. Without it, both Western Europe and East of North America would cool very significantly. We would see how a “generalized cooling throughout the North Atlantic and Northern Hemisphere in general“That the temperature would collapse in Europe, how they would strengthen” from the winter storms, with more and more powerful explosive cyclogenesis “and a much more snow (taking a lot of productive lands from the market in a matter of years).

The change would be (will be) brutal and we know it in good ink.

The story is full of examples. The small ice age was, according to NASA a period that began around 1550 and consisted of three cold peaks (around 1650, 1770 and 1850) interspersed with relatively warm intervals. Those peaks were extremely hard and are key triggers of three of the great geopolitical conflicts of the continent: the wars of religion, the French Revolution (and Bonapartism) and the revolutions around 1848. But also the fall of the Ming dynasty in China.

These years are full of anecdotes, from the Swedish troops crossing the frozen sea in the Swedish war Until the suspicion that the cold was the Calve factor that caused the wood of the Stradivarius to be denser than usual.

Hunger, pain and suffering. In National Geographic published in his day A small summary of historical testimonies where it can be verified that “aldeano aldeans (survived) based on bread made with ground nuts stall The floor was too hard to dig.

We are not in 1600, of course. And that shows, especially, in our ability to ‘adapt’ and to use internationalist networks to ‘cushion’ local or regional changes. No one can argue that, in recent decades, our systems have improved: beyond our assessment, Andalusia now has double irrigation that in the 90s in similar climatic circumstances.

However, as the authors say, it is very difficult to imagine some scenario in which a climate change of that draft does not lead to a deep economic, political and social crisis throughout the entire continent.

And that, of course, is the worst problem of all. Right now, all of Europe is in a hurry for a warmer climate, so that The Sahara extends to the northso that The rains and snow become more rare. At the time the Gulf Current is stopped (And it is increasingly clear that it will stop) We will be headed to the opposite situation. But without time to react.

As the old woman said (and probably apocryphal) Chinese curse, we seem destined to live interesting times.

Image | Juanedc

In Xataka | In 536 the sun began to shine less than the moon. The small ice age began then began