It may just be weather but..................massive amounts of rainfall in the mid-Atlantic US (we have had over 10 inches of rain here in my area in the past 4 days with more to come today and tomorrow), record high temperatures in the UK, Japan and some other places, wildfires in Greece, etc. Don't know whether it is global warming or cooling only that it's just not normal.
Hi Alan,
It
is weather, but there are patterns emerging. There will be more weather extremes (especially in precipitation).
In my country we're currently experiencing another weather extreme, only ours is in drought. It is caused by a persistent high-pressure system over the Scandinavian region, but there is not a trend yet, so Weather it is, not Climate Change.
It has not rained for over a month and temperatures have been high, and nature is reacting by drying up, with trees shedding leaves, rivers are approaching record low levels (making transport over rivers like the Rhine difficult), and the lack of river water increases the risks of soil salinization of coastal regions where crops are grown. Cattle are already eating winter supplies of grass, since there is not enough grass in the meadows to go round, and farmers are forbidden to use the surface water for their sprinklers to water the fields. Swimming in open water is dangerous due to the bloom of poisonous algae. This week we're having our first national-heatwave (at least 5 days over 25 Celsius, of which 3 over 30 degrees Celsius) of the year.
The single benefit of the hot weather is that it's going to be an excellent wine year, the wine grapes can be harvested several weeks earlier than usual.
Cheers,
Bart
