Aimee Howarth brings you an interview with The Yorker directors on the final day of the advent articles
Aimee Howarth speaks to YUSU's sabbatical officers about their Christmas Day routine for day 17 of the advent calendar
For the final time this term, Vicky Morris updates you on this weeks film news
50 years after the publication of 'James and the Giant Peach', the works of Roald Dahl continue to celebrate success.
Evidence from the last 30 years suggests that white Christmases are becoming less frequent. 1996 saw widespread snowfall over the UK, as did 1999 and to a lesser extent in 2004.
Above average temperatures are forecast, with mainly mild, wet weather in store throughout December.
However, trends would indicate a decrease in snowfall over the festive period for the last 50 years. Last year, for example, was one of the four warmest winters on record; and of the ten coldest winters on record, only one of these has fallen in recent memory, for some of us: 1962-63.
The long term weather forecast for Christmas this year is unfortunately predicting more of the same warmer weather. Above average temperatures are forecast, with mainly mild, wet weather in store throughout December. Unfortunately, we are unlikely to see snow fights on campus this Christmas.
But is this a trend that is likely to continue? And what do the climate scientists predict for York’s climate in the future? Well, average winter temperatures for the area have been predicted to increase by 1-2°C by 2050. This increase sounds fairly modest at face value, however, when you examine how this increase will manifest itself day-to-day, it is a profound change.
This increase in winter temperatures forecast under climate change will increase the energy of the weather systems over the whole of the UK, meaning that cold air arriving from the Arctic or Eastern Europe will have to be significantly cooler to cause snow to fall. Rainier winters will become more likely in the future, and snow will fall far less often.
At the more extreme end of the scale, climate change could cause abrupt significant changes to the world’s climate system that could change the conditions we experience in the UK fundamentally. For example, recent research has suggested that a global average temperature rise of 4°C could be enough to trigger the collapse of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream Current.
If the Gulf Stream did collapse, it is thought that temperatures in the UK would be 5°C cooler. One way to imagine the effect of this is to look at the climate of north-eastern Canada as it is today, which is on the same latitude as the UK.
Without the warm waters of the Gulf Stream to warm the UK region, temperatures would plunge far below zero for much of the winter, with the coastline being peppered with ice floes and icebergs. However, in reality we do not know the precise implications of a halting of the Gulf Stream, and whether they would be more, or less severe than this.
One thing that scientists know for sure is that it would take a lot longer to happen than the 4-5 days presented in the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow.
Estimates range from as little as 30 years to hundreds, it does of course depend on if we manage to mitigate our greenhouse gas emissions, and also on how the world’s climate system responds to any warming we subject it to.
So funnily enough, as much as we might see fewer white Christmases over the next few decades, Dickens-esque coverings of snow and ice could become an annual event if, and it’s a big if, The Gulf Stream collapses. In the meantime we’ll just have to get our brollies out.
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