§ Lord Kennetasked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the implications for the British Isles of the apparent failure of "heat pumps" in the North Atlantic. [HL816]
§ Lord WhittyObservations have shown that over the last few years deep ocean mixing in the Greenland-Iceland-Norway Seas (part of the "heat pump") has declined, but not stopped. At the same time mixing in the Labrador Sea has strengthened. Preliminary indications from work at the Meteorological Office's Hadley Centre, funded by my department, are that both these changes may be a consequence of the long-term variability of weather patterns over the North Atlantic, known as the North Atlantic Oscillation. This has resulted in a predominance of westerly winds in winter since the mid-1980s, with a tendency for warmer, stormier weather over the British Isles.