Requiem for a Stable Climate

I know, I know... there is no such thing as a 'stable' climate. As an environmental educator and geographer I always remind my students that the only thing constant about the climate is that it is prone to change. But here's the thing: There is a real sense that the weather (at least around here) is more frequently stepping outside of the boundaries of what constitutes normality.

This change has been discernible even in my own relatively short lifetime. Growing up in the Ottawa-Gatineau region some two decades ago, there was a certain 'reliability' inherent in the weather. You knew that in late January, for example, you could expect cold sub-zero weather and piles of accumulated snow lying around from previous months of winter. Heck, even the National Capital Commission felt that the weather was reliable enough to plan a ten-day festival in the name of 'Winterlude' at this time of the year. Sure, there were the odd rare weather events, but these were rare - that's the point. Now, rare and (often severe) weather is the new normal.

For example, last night (the night of January 30th), Ottawa faced hours heavy rain, strong winds and balmy weather. It was a spring storm. The temperature reached 11.7 degrees, shattering the former record high of 5.6 degrees for this day of the year, a record which dates back to 1974! This was odd in itself, but just last week Ottawa faced another record smasher when the temperature dropped to -29 (with the windshield it felt like -38), which was the coldest it had been on that day in 8 years. In other words, within one week we have seen a temperature swing of over 40 degrees!

Yet more than being frightening, this experience with climatic change is saddening. This morning as I walked to campus and faced wind gusts of up to 70km/h I couldn't help but feel like I was losing an old friend, as if someone close to me was degenerating before my very eyes. The planet on which we live has some kind of an illness with some pretty scary symptoms. One hopes that the sadness people feel about anthropogenic climate change inspires action for change.