A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

Suddenly, all is forgiven. In the year of the Gathering we have a summer to remember. The country is showing itself at its best. No visitor could be unmoved! Who writes the script for these things anyway?! As I write the sun is blazing…again. It’s as good as the south of France.
Remarkably, the fabled Azores blocking high has given us a second shot. Or the jetstream moved. Whichever, or both, the summer has confounded those pessimists who thought that the cold dry spell we suffered earlier in the year was, as it were, our one shot at a non-Atlantic summer.
The impact is delightful. At its most basic there’s that comfort that heat brings. They say that yoga is best practised in warm climates and you can understand why. Your muscles are more relaxed in warm weather…and so are you!
With one bound our inner Mediterranean (or Mexican!) is free. The streets and beaches are dappled with skin and light and freedom of movement. Bodies that have been for the most part hidden for months are released from their constraints. Mind you, not all are worthy of their freedom. There are beauteous beasts and beastly beauties, but that’s another day’s work.
In the midst of this sundrenched arcadia, spare a thought for those less fortunate. Eastern European countries are still cleaning up after terrifying rains released vast torrents of muddy water washing down the course of the Danube, inundating towns, villages, farmland, the lot.
Elsewhere, there were spectacular electric storms in America. In Colorado, for example, one storm showered over 500 lightning strikes and hailstones of more than 3cm in diameter. That’d ring your bell and no mistake. Meanwhile, across the Rockies in Utah and California’s Death Valley they have record temperatures close to the highest ever recorded on earth. Which is pretty hot.
The thing is that recent global patterns, our heat wave and these records in the US obscure the probability that the world may actually be getting colder. This has started to happen because, apparently, sun spots are dying back. You wouldn’t have noticed it while bronzing yourself over the last weeks, but so it seems. Solar activity is declining.
It may be what they call the Maunder Minimum which caused the so-called Little Ice Age. This global cold period might have begun as early as 1250 when pack ice began to move south in the North Atlantic and glaciers in Greenland began to encroach on farmland but it really took hold between 1550 and 1850. People could ice skate on rivers in winter and you could bank on snow at Christmas…
That Little Ice Age brought the Medieval Warm Period to a close. (I’m serious! These are the accepted terms!) An earlier version may well have triggered the Dark Ages. All the evidence says that these little ice ages cause a lot of trouble in the world, trouble that stretches far beyond the weather, so it’s not exactly good news if we’re heading into another one.
The news comes from NASA and the figures support their view. Strange as it seems these days, the last winter and late spring of 2013 are entirely consistent with this view. Right across the northern hemisphere there has been a major slowdown in agricultural production. Minnesota farmers have just skipped planting altogether. It was too cold and wet until it was also too late.
The same is true of Canada, Norway, China (coldest weather for 30 years), Russia (50 year snow records broken) and Alaska (longest snow season on record). Germany had its darkest winter for 43 years. Suddenly the floods in central Europe take on a new significance.
Nobody is sure whether it would be, or will be, worse without global warming but it probably would. One way or another, it looks like we’re in for longer and colder winters. And soggy summers will present across Europe in a messy and completely haphazard way.
Fuel costs will rise. Bad harvests may mean higher food costs too. Not surprisingly, earlier Little Ice Ages led to famines, wars and political upheavals. The last one may have prompted the gloomier and doomier sects that emerged from the early 17th century onwards, a legacy that we still haven’t quite excised. There are interesting times ahead.
We, of course, on our Atlantic periphery, may get away with it as often as not. Sometimes you don’t want a blocking high! The sea oh the sea, is gra geal mo chroi… But don’t put money on it. Hope for the best and hedge your fuel.
But for now the message is to enjoy what we’re getting while we get it. Carpe diem, as they say. Tomorrow will come soon enough.
Happy tanning!!