MONSOON UK

[jpak]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17674616&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=monsoon-uk--name_page.html

IT will be a very different Britain, a land of hot, dry summers and torrential rain in the steaming autumn.

Weather experts are becoming increasingly convinced that in the not-too-distant future Britain's season of drizzle and drab skies will give way to sudden storms and teeming rain.

We've had the warmest decade and hottest July since records began... now brace yourself for Monsoon UK.

New research suggests the kind of extreme downpour usually associated with India and the tropics will become a familiar part of autumn in Britain as a result of global warming and climate change.

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[Kutjara]

1. This will be a huge problem.

The housing boom of the past two decades has led to the construction of thousands of homes on land prone to flooding. Areas that were natural floodplains and river runoffs now have large developments on them, particularly in the Southeast of the country.

If rainfall is increasing, so too will the incidence of widespread flooding.

Of course, there is another view of the effects of global warming on the British Isles. This model predicts that cold water from the melting northern icecap will flow south into the Atlantic and 'switch off' the Gulf Stream. If that happens, Britain's climate will be more akin to Moscow's than Mumbai's. In the winter, you'll be able to walk from London to Stockholm.

The final outcome of these countervailing forces is unclear, but what is evident is that it may soon become meaningless to even think in terms of 'climate.' All we'll have is weather, lots and lots of highly unpredictable weather.

[hatrack]

3. Huh. And I thought only we Americans did dumbass things like . . .

. . . building expensive houses in floodplains.

Guess I was wrong yet again - my wife will be glad to hear that!!

[Marblehead]

2. I thought

UK was going to get much colder because the Gulf Stream current will shut down by too much fresh water melt due to glacier melt.

[Javaman]

4. So instead of cows floating down the street...

will they be replaced with fat Parliament members?