[jambutty]

If the north pole ice caps melts any more it will release squillions of tons of ‘fresh’ water into the North Atlantic and as well as contributing to rising sea levels it is the fresh water that does the damage. It won’t cool the Gulf Stream because it should still flow from the tropics.

Salt water being more dense than fresh water means that the fresh water will be near the surface thus pushing the salt water down to the depths. The temperature of the water also comes into the equation. Normally as the Gulf Stream runs out of steam and nears the Arctic it gets pushed down into the depths and returns to whence it came from to be warmed up and sent back northwards. The extra fresh water from melting ice caps makes this happen much sooner. Also the air temperature above the melting ice will make things colder.

The paradox is that the more CO2 is in the atmosphere the more heat from the sun gets trapped in our atmosphere and the quicker the polar caps melt. Not to mention the snow on top of mountains. The quicker the ice caps melt the more fresh water is dumped into the sea and the earlier the Gulf Stream will be pushed down.

A couple of weeks ago on TV they showed some skiing holiday resorts in the Alps. No snow. Not a single flake and the ski runs were GREEN not WHITE.