Remember wine from Spain, Italy and France?
Well, it's on the way out. Say hello to Chateau Du Edinburgh.
According to a new report from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, written up in the New Scientist:
A century from now, Spain and Italy will be enduring baking, parched summers while residents of central and north-west Europe will be experiencing what we now think of as Mediterranean warmth.
Reindert Haarsma and his team from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in De Bilt used existing computer models to study changes in weather patterns resulting from the expected global warming. These indicated that summer temperatures in southern Europe would rise by 2 to 3 °C compared with today's, and that lack of rain would dry up the soils. The hot, dry air above these arid soils would then rise and expand, creating a low-pressure zone over the region. Winds circulating anticlockwise around this zone would feed continental air to more northerly
areas, raising temperatures there too.The same issue of the magazine also discussed the expansion of the tropics, also caused by global warming, which is set to lead to "the most serious water crisis in the history" of California, according to governor Arnie. Snow levels in the mountains of California are currently only 61% what they have been in previous years, according to the article.