The canicule

As far as I am concerned all doubt that human induced climate has been dispelled. This year in the South East of England our weather has changed form much colder than normal in winter - my pipes froze. We then moved to an early spring with more rain than usual. Now we have a canicule. June was the driest on record since 1925. I am now having difficulty reducing the temperature in my bedroom to below 30 degrees celcius.

The climate has changed so that average temperatures in the UK are more than 0.8 degrees celcius  higher than the early 20th century.

We are lucky in the UK; the hot weather will break soon and we will get rain. We do not have heavily forested areas like California so forest fires are less of a problem. The UK is surrounded by sea so our canicules are moderated.

It looks as though this year the whole of the Northern Hemisphere is suffering from extremely high temperatures this is unusual.

The Iberian peninsular is sweltering. It looks as though the Sahara desert is travelling northwards. It is quite possible that Southern Spain will become a desert in the next two decades. It is also possible that parts of North Africa will become uninhabitable within the next two decades.

I fear that when temperatures return to "normal" humanity will forget about climate change and do nothing about it.

Do we have to suffer increasing temperatures each and every year before we turn our attention to reducing CO2 emissions? By then it will be too late.