Horse 428 - Global Warming II

In Horse 383 I had rather a tongue in cheek jib about global warming, it turns out that there are some really bizarre side effects.

1. Britain and France actually get colder because of Global Warming.
Yes, this is true. I'm not lying at all and there's statistical proof now as well. To explain this you'll need to know about one of the basic laws of physics.

Where you have a potential difference in energy, energy will flow from the state of high potential to the positional state of low potential. You can see this by the operation of a battery, eventually the two sides of the battery will possess the same potential and whilst the battery isn't "used up", energy can't flow any more and is useless. Likewise heat will flow from a hot place into a less hot place (what is inaccurately called cold), thus when you open a fridge, you're not actually letting out the cold but letting in the heat.

As the planet heats up, the difference between the poles and the equator is actually becoming less and therefore the amount of energy flow from the equator should slow down. Now then, the biggest energy transfer system in the world is a sea current that runs from the Carribean across the Alantic called the Gulf Stream. This moves at between 2-4 knots typically and dumps warm water in the North Sea near Britain and France.

Think about it, if that flow slows down (which it is doing), then the heat transfer from the equator is becoming less. Unfortunately, the overall daytime temperatures in both France and Britain are experiencing less of a boost from the transfer of heat, so average daylight temperatures are actually falling slowly as a direct result of Global Warming. Daft eh?

2. People are profiting from Global Warming.
If you take a glass of and fill it with ice cubes, then fill it to the brim with whiskey (whiskey has a freezing point of -5°C so is perfect for this experiment) and then go outside to the shops or maybe K-Mart or whatever it is that you do and forget that you've left the experiment, the ice melts.
When you come back you'll see that the amount of volume displaced by the ice is actually more than the liquid water formed and the levels in the glass (even after accounting for evaporation) actually fall.

There are people alive right now who will for the first time in recorded human history actually see a summer when the Arctic ice caps will melt entirely. This is of course extremely useful.
As the polar ice caps melt, they free up transport routes across the North Pole. It becomes possible to move ships from places like Norway and Canada right across the top of the world. A shipping route from Amsterdam to Tokyo which currently goes via the Mediterranean and the Suez canal et al. would simply scoot across the top; reducing travel times from 27 to just 8 days.

In fact Pat Broe who owns a bunch of US railways, bought the previously semi-frozen sub-Arctic Canadian port of Churchill, Manitoba, in 1997, for just $7US. 7 bucks bought this guy something that's potenially worth millions and millions.Currently there's a land rush going on for ports in Russia as well as Scandanavia to cash in on the potential of transport opportunities.

... and people thought Noah was stark raving bonkers for building a great big boat in the middle of nowhere. I'd say he was an estute businessman.