FLOODS sweep Romania, hailstones the size of walnuts batter Switzerland, drought-stricken France dreads a plague of locusts, while Spain and Portugal are burning up. A vision of the start of the Apocalypse? No, just Europe's bizarre weather pattern over the past couple of days. Closer to home, the south of England has had its hosepipe ban tightened and its wading birds left with nowhere to wade.
Those seeking the comfort of familiarity would have to head up to Scotland, where it's par for the course for Glasgow Fair fortnight – chilly, dull and wet.
The rest of the world has not been spared, of course. Thousands are homeless in Bangladesh because of floods, Taiwan and mainland China are being swept by a typhoon, Hong Kong is wilting in a heatwave, Mexico is being battered by a hurricane. Niger, meanwhile, the all-but-forgotten corner of Africa, is home to 3.6 million souls in the throes of famine brought on by chronic drought.
It could all be coincidence, but we were warned as recently as last December that the effects of man-made climate change were with us now.
Scientists at the Met Office's Hadley Centre linked human-derived pollution to the devastating 2003 heatwave in Europe which is believed to have claimed more than 27,000 lives. Their research, published in Nature, showed the greenhouse effect raised the risk of such phenomena by a factor of two to four, and predicted that they could crop up every two years. So here we are. Dr Dan Barlow, director of policy and research at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said yesterday: "It is difficult to link specific events to the effects of climate change, but the Nature report did state that human influence had doubled the risk of extreme weather events like the heatwave the previous year.
"It is all the more reason for taking action now to combat global warming instead of waiting for the worst."
For some, it already is the worst. Spain and Portugal are suffering their worst droughts since records began in the 1940s, and in western France water levels are at their lowest since the drought of 1976.
Yesterday, police in Spain retrieved the bodies of 11 firefighters, trapped by one of the many forest blazes caused by tinder box conditions. Bans and limits on the use of water have been issued across 51 of France's 96 regional departments, while in Italy, a stretch of beach near Genoa was shut after toxic algae, brought on by extreme heat, poisoned dozens of bathers. Wildlife campaigners say the numbers of successful breeding lapwing, redshank and snipe have fallen by up to 80% at five RSPB reserves in Sussex and Kent. At Brading Marshes, on the Isle of Wight, low rainfall has meant redshanks have gone completely while just one pair of lapwing remains.
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