Monday 2 February 2009

Mystery solved!

It turns out that the Bristol Bus story mentioned in my previous post was this:- A bus, that was made in Bristol about 30 years ago, was shipped to Dubai for the filming of an episode of Doctor Who and had a container dropped on it at the docks.

Stirring stuff, I'm sure you'll agree, and definitely a story of such importance that it is the main headline for a city of 500,000 people. My attention is not at all brought back to the fact that Mrs Red Squirrel's unpleasant incident didn't even make the local news in her NY borough.

Compare and contrast *rolls eyes*


Anyway, it snowed today. SNOW! Snooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwww! Snowsnowsnowsnowsnow! It doesn't snow here very often (as you can probably tell). Once every other year it'll snow enough to settle on the ground, and once every five years or so it'll settle overnight - so to have an entire centimetre of snow on the ground right now has reduced most of the city's residents to gibbering simpletons trying to build snowmen and throw a handful of slush at passing walkers.

My snowman rocked.

The reason it doesn't snow very much is because of the gulf stream. Water, freezing in the arctic becomes more salty (and therefore heavier) and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. This motion pulls warm water from the tropics (or specifically the Caribbean) and the resulting current of warm water heading north is called the gulf stream. I have helpfully illustrated this for you below, with the UK represented as a tramp with a begging bowl, the USA as a greedy Omnomnom sucking up the world's resources, the Arctic as a drowned polar bear and Jamaica as a palm tree smoking a spliff*





This is all well and good because as you can see from my highly detailed diagram, the UK should be as cold as the Labrador Coast (which presumably is where the dogs come from). Thanks to the gulf stream however, it's barely cold enough to snow down in the 'knee' bit where Bristol resides.

Unfortunately, as the Arctic ice melts due to global warming then the water doesn't get saltier anymore, and sinks slower or not at all - shutting off the warm water flowing north**

So consider your poor cousins across the Atlantic when the price of gas reaches three cents a cubic metre and you can't leave your Humvee running all night to make it quicker for your 200 yard drive to work the next morning. Consider poor us - because the only two places on the planet due to get colder thanks to global warming are the UK and Norway. Runaway soaring global temperatures and it actually gets *colder*. How unlucky can you get?

On the plus side, at least we'd come second in the Winter Olympics.....




*National stereotypes - lazy *and* fun!
**You may have seen the Atlantic Conveyor stop in a film called 'The Day After Tomorrow.' So, yeah, like that but over years and years and without the cold-enough-to-freeze-you-in-seconds weather. And without the tidal waves. And without the gross over-simplification of the plot. And without the stupid Hollywood sentimentality. Seriously - worse film since Armageddon. Don't *ever* get me started on Arma-twatfest-geddon....

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Red Squirrel, give me your address and I will have my 14-year-old son shovel the entire contents of our front lawn into a large, insulated box which I will then ship to you absolutely free of charge.

Someone ought to enjoy the shit.

Anonymous said...

You could be an American weatherman with the stunning quality of your map Little Squirrel.

I should build you a snowman over here and take a picture of it for you...

:)

Belle said...

Are you a Geography teacher Red Squirrel. If you are, please could you tell me where Bristol is?

xerxes said...

Yes, but which docks? If Bristol, then it was an unconsidered snafu and we can go back to sleep; if Dubai, then a deliberate expression of jihadist solidarity and the West should be afraid.

weenie said...

Armageddon - it was alright for a popcorn movie, entertaining in its own way, sentimental love song and all that. I can think of worse movies.

3 inches of snow up my way, melted the following day, just as well cos I hate driving in the stuff!

Pearl said...

Snow!
You silly man.
Another Septic Reading your Blog,
Pearl

Red Squirrel said...

Jan - we got another lot overnight, but thanks for the offer anyway :)

Sweet Cheeks - do so! Snowmen rule.

Belle - no, I'm not a geography teacher. On my drawing Bristol would be roughly on the tramp's left testicle, but I thought 'knee' sounded better :-P

inkspot - welcome! It was Dubai docks, which makes it even less of a story really.

weenie - we'll have to agree to disagree on Armageddon...

Pearl - I know it probably snows 250 days a year for you but I hope the novelty never wears off for me :)