Washington - Europe could suffer an Arctic freeze within 10 years due to the rise in greenhouse gases, according to a report in Science magazine published just days ahead of the Kyoto world summit on climate change.
Global warming could unleash a sequence of events that would eliminate factors which keep Europe's climate temperate, Dr Wallace Broecker, of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, writes. Winter temperatures in Europe could fall by up to 11 degrees Celsius and Dublin would be as cold as Spitzbergen, the Norwegian islands 1,000 km north of the Arctic circle, he writes.
A 10-day conference opens in Kyoto, Japan, on Sunday to establish goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. One effect of global warming would be to disrupt ocean current flows, heading off the Gulf Stream. "Without the Gulf Stream, nothing would temper the Arctic air, and Europe would enter a deep freeze," Dr Broecker says.
Meanwhile yesterday, the British Meteorological Office said the earth's temperature is this year set to reach its highest level since records began, continuing a warming trend that began in the 1970s. The average temperature of the earth this year will be about 0.43 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1960-1991 average, the office said. A spokesman said that average was "around 14.5 degrees Celsius".
The office said temperatures were boosted by El Nino, a natural warming of the tropical east Pacific which occurs every few years.