Clouds to become lonelier as climate change blows in
We worry, with good reason, about the world’s alarming loss of biodiversity. But I also wonder, as the climate crisis tightens its grip, about another issue: namely, as our seasons rapidly blend into one, what will be the impact on weather diversity?
On one level, the weather will become more exotic (this year for example every single month has recorded above average temperatures in the UK) and less predictable.
But also, as it oscillates between heavy rain and prolonged period of drought, we stand to lose the joyous subtleties of our seasons. The vagaries of Britain’s weather will be lost as it becomes more polarised.
For example, the different types of precipitation we experience here (for which there are famously at least 50 different words) could in time all become plain old downpours as periods of rainfall become increasingly intense. Forget your mizzles and drizzles, spits and splashes – this week parts of London notched up half a month’s rain in a single night.
Weather diversity is also reducing on fine days. A report published this week by the World Meteorological Organisation on Europe’s climate said that not only has the continent warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the world over the past three decades, but its clouds are disappearing too. As carbon dioxide levels rise, less water vapour is released into the atmosphere so fewer cumulus clouds form and the earth’s surface gets hotter.
This year is the 220th anniversary of the taxonomy of cloud formations proposed by the British weather watcher Luke Howard. But, over the next two centuries, we may start to lose those white splodges scattered across the blue canvas of a sunny day, giving new meaning to the immortal Wordsworth line: “I wandered lonely as a cloud.”