Wow. It’s quite cold, isn’t it? And it’s a bit of a shock to the system! The average maximum temperature in December is 7C: parts of the country hit 14C on Christmas Day 2023. This coming week minimum temperatures are likely to get down as far as -3C, 4 degrees below the average.
Of course, it is meant to be cold in winter. In fact, it is essential. The insects and plants which form the basis of our food chain rely on the cues given to them by the winter’s cold, and the subsequent warmth of spring.
And the cold serves a purpose for us humans, too. We need the encouragement to bed down, snuggle up, focus inwards – just as we need our hearts to lift in hope at the coming of the spring, the joy and freedom of long summer nights, and the wistful beauty of the autumn. We are creatures of nature, too.
But unseasonal warmth can tempt green shoots and creatures out too soon. As lovely as it is to see the earth bursting to life, early shoots are vulnerable to a further cold snap – like the one that is heading towards us this coming week.
Weather warnings of extreme cold can be confusing, as we are also processing the news that 2023 was the warmest year ever recorded. The connection between these things isn’t being particularly well-explained. Global Heating means that annual average temperatures are increasing, but it doesn’t mean that we won’t also see extreme and unexpected cold.
In fact, it makes it more likely. Perhaps the most predictable feature of the Climate Crisis is that the weather is becoming more unpredictable.
The cold snap we’re experiencing now is a result of warming sea temperatures. These, together with decreased levels of ice in the Arctic, are destabilising the jet stream. The jet stream is the band of air which circles the Arctic, usually keeping cold Arctic air trapped at the top of the globe. When the jet stream is weakened it loses its shape, allowing fingers of cold air to creep southwards.
This is what we’re experiencing now: very cold, dry air, in contrast to the warm wet air from the Mediterranean which characterised the UK’s weather last year. It looks likely that North America will be especially badly hit this year, as it was last year, with one of these fingers of Arctic air pushing down as far as Texas.
For our kids, this kind of chaotic weather will be the norm – but in fact, all of us under the age of about 45 have grown up with Earth’s weather systems in chaos. We’ve never known the kind of stability which has prevailed for millennia prior to this point in human history. And yet, the seasons are ingrained into our bodies: we instinctively know what feels right, and what doesn’t.
And there’s no question that something doesn’t feel right about what’s going on now. It’s unsettling. We Brits love to talk about the weather, but there’s not even anything reassuring about that conversation these days. Dare we admit to each other what the problem really is?
This week’s easy action: watch and share NASA’s climate spiral, a brilliant visualisation of rising average temperatures, which has now been updated to include 2023. https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5190/.
