BRRR

 

Here in Zurich we had a terrible spring. When it wasn’t raining it was leaden and gloomy. Venturing outside in winter jackets and scarves, we shivered in the chill wind. One friend fetched her winter boots from the cellar because her feet were freezing, exclaiming, “Winter boots! In May!” I planted nasturtium seeds twice; each time they rotted in the ground. The morning glories’ growth is severely stunted. Snow was predicted in May for altitudes only slightly higher than that of Lake Zurich. One joked about whether we should all die from depression or from vitamin D deficiency instead. Only now that it is finally summery can I wash the heavy fleece jacket in which I cocooned myself every day, needing its coziness.

When we were able to lift our heads from the nest of scarves and blankets, we found that we shared our experiences with virtually the entire northern hemisphere. From the UK to eastern and continental Europe and North America, the headlines all echoed the same theme: record-setting blizzards and snow depth, widest tornado every recorded, coldest month on record, migratory bird return delayed, states of emergency declared, snowfall in May, mass death of sheep and newborn lambs caught in the icy cold, three-week delay in blossoming and ripening, cattle deaths, ships stuck in the ice. No freak spring this, something more serious, what in the world is causing such widespread chill? To be sure, global warming is just that, global, with both extremes of temperature to be expected, but on this massive scale?

The answer is also massive, and chilling – pun intended. Melting artic ice has exposed huge swaths of open sea to sunlight, and this warming has shifted the position of the jet stream. Instead of the usual westerlies as the prevailing winds, massive quantities of cold arctic air were able to push father south, covering the eastern US and Europe with icy inert blankets. This was not a phenomenon limited to this spring; weather scientists are predicting more extreme weather events to come, including the opposite situation, heat waves.

We started considering the small - fleece jackets and struggling morning glories - and then went to the massive, the jet stream and continent-size frigid air masses. I’m wondering if it will be our individual experiences this spring or the sheer mammoth geographical size of the cause that will do more to convince us that climate change is drastic and already upon us?