Science and numbers are fine, but they often don't represent reality especially when it's the weather. We focus so much on air temperature but humidity, air movement and heat radiation are just as important if not more so.
So, today feels twice as hot as yesterday. Going out for a walk through vegetation formed in a mild, damp climate seemed other-worldly with the North African feel from lunchtime onwards, as did the lack of dust and smells of camel dung and other exotic aromas. It's just beginning to cool a little now, but the house still feels near icy cool when you come in.
Windows were shut at 10 this morning, blinds down, aluminium foil over the West-facing folding glass doors. That made a colossal difference compared with yesterday, not only was the glass cool to the touch on the inside compared with hand hot, but the lack of radiation pouring into the room means high 20s rather than mid 40s. A couple of 6" USB powered fans make it very pleasant.
I'd meant to cut up bike boxes to cover the windows with as well as the al foil, but on its own for just a day it's perfectly fine.
al_yrpal wrote: ↑19 Jul 2022, 8:25am
Ok, it was a bit hot yesterday but I remember 1976, digging drains with a pickaxe for my new house on the mountain in Wales, the sweat pouring off my nose. It went on for 2 months! The bed of the Thames cracked and next day they appointed a Minister for drought! This spell is nothing, the temperature may get slightly higher but, at the moment its just a short spell created by freak weather conditions.
I also remember Charlie and Diana's wedding whilst we were camping in the Dordogne 1981, the temperature was 44 degrees for about 4 days.
Hysterical BBC and newspaper headlines written by youngsters who werent there methinks
Al
And the Romans were cultivating vines in the North of England, it was likely warmer then than now, before the cooling which started in the 530s and continued right through until the last century.
Of course setting light to oil, gas and coal to provide us with energy is having some effect on our climate, but the anthropogenic part of the carbon cycle is roughly a fifth that of the natural carbon cycle. It's how we're affecting the natural cycle - the unusual way we're farming included - which should be gaining more attention than burning stuff, daft as that is from a pollution point of view.
Yes, it is hotter now than any day in '76 but this heat is for two days. Of course trends are up, because that's how it is coming out of a cooler part of an interglacial period. It's possible, even likely, that AGW is tipping the balance and prolonging this warm part of a glacial era, which given the top half of Britain will likely be covered in ice once gone, isn't entirely a bad thing.