Everybody but politicians and journalists knows that weather is not climate, and that long-term climate evolution in a given region will slowly influence its prevalent weather and vegetation patterns. Nevertheless, any vagary of the weather –an exceptionally warm year as was 2016 (not the warmest in recent history but close), a drought, a flood, or a hurricane– is now attributed as a consequence of climate change that we, worst species on Earth, would have put on a catastrophic path.

In fact, the general climatic conditions have not changed much since we have written records. Already in Genesis can we read about seven years of great plenty and seven years of famine (Gen, 41.29‑30). There were warm Roman and Medieval periods, as well as a cold Dark age, and the little Ice Age that ended around the turn of the 19^th century; now we live in relatively warm time, expecting a new glaciation to start soon, or in millennia, nobody knows when.

An interesting booklet was published in English last month[1], “Vagaries of the Weather in Past Centuries and their Relevance for Climate Change Today”, by Theodor Romang, a resident of Gstaad, in the midst of the Swiss Alps. It summarizes findings from the Mösching-Gander-Chronicles which is a collection of weather observations made in the Saanen Region from as early as AD 114 to 1840, a tiny place on Earth, but a very long and significant record.

Many examples are given of exceptionally or excessively hot, or cold, times; of very early, or very late, seasons; of highest or lowest snow covers in human memory; etc. It is a non-scientific but accurate description of weather caprioles that did occur and, although unfrequently, repeated themselves times and times again.

After having read this booklet you will never ever be tempted to relate any meteorological event to the direct and singular effect of climate change. Deniers or apologists alike must learn how to shut up. Over so many centuries, so many “unprecedented events” are described that one can only laugh about the alleged exceptionality of present weather variations, even severe ones, that could only be explained by the current climate situation.

I’m still awaiting on climatologists who would be able to explain the moderate variations that took place over the past couple of millennia, avoiding the condemnation without trial of the usual and too easy anthropogenic culprit named carbon dioxide.

 

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[1]     By Theodor Romang, author and publisher, Gstaad 2017
To order: http://www.mmedien.ch/en/publishing-products/books/vagaries/  (20 CHF+ shipping)
1^st edition in German in 2010.

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