Is Our Weather Getting Worse

I was watching a programme on channel 4 the other night titled " Is Our Weather getting Worse " which I found very interesting.

Mainly the prog', concentrated on the colder winters we are having, cycles of heat waves in the summer and increased rain leading to repeated flood incidents. I suppose the main question the programme was trying to investigate was whether our weather is getting more extreme and it threw up some very interesting facts.

Apparently, what's been causing our extremes of weather of late are shifts in the four jet streams which occur high in the atmosphere and subsequent shifts in the gulf stream which brings warmer waters to our shores.

The programme showed that our recent bouts of heat waves, arctic weather and flooding were all down to variances in these natural phenomena but it also demonstrated that contrary to the predicted increasing Mediterranean weather we might expect, there is also a very good chance that we could experience exactly the opposite in coming decades depending on what happens to the gulf stream by shifting towards  a more  Scandinavian type climate.

I think the most worrying fact the programme unearthed was results from Arctic ice core samples which showed that in the last 500,000 years Co2, one of the most problematic of greenhouse gases, has always been lower than 300 parts per million in the atmosphere. 100 years ago there were 280 parts per million but now we are just breaching 400 parts per million. That's a 30% rise in Co2 in the atmosphere in the last 100 years.

I am constantly telling the kid's it's vitally important they stick in at school, get good results and good jobs. Their lives and their children's lives will depend on what they and we do now !

Definitely something to think about !