Real autumn frost is a rare treat in a warming world
IT HAS been a lukewarm autumn so far. Overall last month temperatures were 1.4°C above the October average. September, meanwhile, was the second warmest on record for the UK.
In recent days it has been reported that Britain’s longest lasting patch of snow – the so-called ‘Sphinx’ in the Cairngorms – has melted away for only the eighth time in the past 300 years.
Given such sultry weather, the altogether different mornings of the past few days have been a delight.
Yesterday I pulled back the bedroom curtains to see my lawn glittering under the first frost of the season. On Wednesday, taking an early morning train out of London, I watched the wreathing vapours rise off the marshes that border the River Thames close to the Dartford Crossing.
Here, finally, is autumn proper in all its sensory glory – possessing the curious polarity which makes one want to stay in bed huddled under the covers and at the same time head out, blowing cheeks into the delicious cold.
Sadly, though, it is already proving a fleeting thing. From tonight things will once more get significantly milder, with rain blowing in from the north and slowly making its way south over the weekend. The warmer, wetter weather which the climate modellers say will be the new hallmark of our winters is once more staking its claim.
How satisfying it is when the seasons do as they should. And what a sorrow, in our warming world, to contemplate how for future generations such moments of what somehow feels to be the “proper” weather of culture and memory will be increasingly rare.
Aside from the ferocious storms, record rainfall and rising seas, these are the more subtle ways in which climate change will impact on us all.
For all the global policy-makers currently pontificating in Glasgow’s conference halls, perhaps an icy autumnal stroll might provide a much-needed moment of clarity?