Ok I have just come back from a weekend in Ireland. A lovely place but full and I mean full of bogs. For those who do not know what a bog is ( and I had never seen one till last year )its when whatever bit of ground you step on you sink ankle deep into the ground as its wet. Wet like a sponge. Now water flows down hill right ? Err in Ireland there are bogs in valley on montains everywhere. You can be at 1500 ft on a mountain and sink ankle deep into the peat. The water just hangs there a centimeter deep lake on a mountain?

Ideal rice growng country? What do you think? Its got to be easier than growng potatoes. I kind of like the idea of Irish rice.

So why are there no Paddy fields.

Richard

Richard, I dread to say it, but if global warming makes Ireland significantly warmer than now, well who knows, we might be looking at Irish paddy fields!

But then if the global warming turns off the gulf stream, that keeps Western Europe at the sort of temperatures we enjoy at present, then maybe the temperatures will plummet, meaning it would be impossible to grow Irish rice.

The effect of the gulf stream is immense. We can all picture scenes of New York covered with snow, but Madrid? Extremely rarely. But New York and Madrid are on about the same latitude, but only one of them gets the benefit of the gulf stream.