"Alastair McDonald" k wrote
in message ...

"Col" wrote in message
...

"Philip Eden" philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom wrote in message
.. .


I found the following which suggests that the river did not freeze all
the
way
across at Teddington during any winter between 1895 and 1963. I am,
of course, happy to defer to anyone who knows any better.

http://www.the-river-thames.co.uk/weather.htm

And on a rather different note from the above I found this bizzare
statement on this website:

HEAT-WAVE

There were four major glacial periods when there were long spells of
intense
cold. Between these periods the climatic conditions improved and
temperatures
rose - called 'interglacials'. During one of these, the temperature rose
to
such
an extent that the climate in the Thames Valley was similar to that in
Central
Africa today.

Assuming these were the interglacials of the last 100 thousand years
or so, how did we ever get equatorial conditions in Southern England?

The last interglacial was the Emian 100,000 years ago. Within glacial
periods such as the one since then, there are mini glacials and
interglacials
called stadials and interstadials. 14,000 years ago (bp) we were in the
Windermere interstadial when temperature may have been warmer
than today. 12,000 bp we were in the Loch Lomond readvance or
Younger Dryas stadial when an ice sheet reformed in the Scottish
Highlands.

The Ice Age has lasted about 2 million years and for the last 400,000
years there has been an interglacial every 100,000 years. See;
http://www.grida.no/climate/vital/02.htm
We are currently in an interglacial but earlier ones have been warmer.

As I see it, there is a danger we will switch into a warmer state, like
that of Central Africa, due to the greenhouse effect.

AFAIK the climate modellers do not know how this warmer state arose,
so they keep quiet about it. They can hardly publish a paper entitled
"Past changes in British climate not simulated by the HadCM3 AOGCM. "

I reckon I have worked out how it happens, but I do not have the
personal or technical skills and prestige to get my ideas across to
those who matter. If anyone thinks they can help, contact me by e-mail.

As I see it, the sudden large changes in climate are caused by the
greenhouse effect of water vapour. If the planet warms, then more
water is evaporated from the oceans, causing further warming and
further evaporation. This cascade halts when cloud cover has
increased such that the new albedo prevents further warming.

Cloud cover is not directly proportional to humidity, therefore for
the cascade to end, it may mean a major reorganisation of the
climate system. For instance, if the Arctic ice disappears, there
will be a loss of albedo which will cause warming. More water
vapour will lead to further warming, and loss of the Polar Front.
This will reduce cloud cover in temperate regions, further
reducing albedo. Only when the inter tropical convergence
zone has widened to reach the latitude of Britain will there
be enough cloud for rapid warming to stop. We will then be
in the state we were in at the last interglacial with a tropical climate.
Presumably, the Arctic Ocean was ice free then too.

Perhaps you can now see why I am so worried about global
warming. It just seems like a bad dream, but the Younger Dryas
stadial and the Emian interglacial did happen.

Cheers, Alastair.

Although I am by no means, a climatological expert, in a warming World your
above idea to me makes more sense than the issues covered in the recent
Horizon program where the suggestion is the switching off of the Gulf Stream
would cause a major cooling of this part of the World. I find the latter
difficult to understand on the basis that, yes there may be major chnges to
the Gulf Stream, but if these are caused by significant melting of the
Arctic Ice and subsequent warming of the Northern Continental regions, then
how would we cool to the extent suggested by that programme? I would have
thought that if our local climate is affected by such a major change, any
cooling would be much less than that suggested and more likely, we may just
have quieter 'high pressure' dominated winters but not repeated 1947/63 type
winters with ice bound ports or anything like that. But then, what do I know
about it?....