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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 479398" data-attributes="member: 7240">Of course, ocean currents and weather patterns determined by geographical features elsewhere on the planet will still play a preponderant role in what happens to local rainfall, etc. You really do have a pretty blank slate if the only variable you're sure you're changing is the mean global temperature. Depending on ocean currents, the region could become anything from a Medditeranean climate to a temperate rainforest to a desert subject to wide seasonal temperature variation.One thing that would be certain, however: sea levels would drop dramatically as the planet's polar caps became enormous. Glaciation might extend far beyond regions which would normally freeze in the winter, bringing Arctic and Antarctic type air masses with them. A drop as significant as you're talking about, it is entirely possible that glaciers could cross into the tropics in high-elevation areas.While I agree that we are entering a period of climate change right now, no reputable climatologist can state at this point whether this short-term warming will be part of a longer warming trend or whether the rapid warming will precipitate another ice age. The only thing we can be sure of is that weather will become less stable and predictable therefore causing increased rates of crop failure, fluctuating water tables and other problems associated with large cities and agricultural areas having the climate change around them. Even in the warm period that earth went through in 800-1350 or the Little Ice Age which followed, the first and last hundred years of these shifts were damaging and destabilizing in almost all areas of the world, even those which "benefited" from the longer-term climate changes.Finally, in response to PirateCat: No. Churchill could not possibly become a major port in 50 years. Whatever the long-term effects of climate change on Arctic Canada, the loss of permafrost will cripple and destroy infrastructure in the region which is incredibly costly even as it stands. Furthermore, the Churchill Polar Bears are amongst the most endangered because of the thinness of the winter ice. With the town's tourism industry ravaged by their extinction, combined with the destabilization of the permafrost on which the rail line and major buildings are built, the short term future of Churchill is oblivion (except for the Spaceport part of course). You will note that the government of Nunavut is the most pro-Kyoto of all provincial/territorial governments in Canada for precisely these reasons. (And yes, I know Churchill is in Manitoba 2 degrees south of Nunavut).</blockquote>

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