Can anyone remember the heatwave of summer of 1976 in London ? – it was the hottest summer we had in living memory!
The extent to which its very likely to be over taken over the next few days, is illustrated well in the differences when comparing the maps below of hotspots in June 2022 and June 1976 though we still have July and August to run for a full comparison. And l don’t think l need to point out the probable explanation for the difference as well to you, as clearly the world is getting hotter.
Global warming was only beginning to be acknowledged in academic circles in the late 1970s as the letter to President Carter in the White House shows clearly suggesting the impact of human activity on the earth particularly from the industrialised world.
Now almost 46 years on, we are still talking about taking measures at UN Conferences to stop the concentration of and total amount of CO2 emissions going further up in out atmosphere with all talk about limiting its impact to 1.5C arise around the world by 2050 sounding pretty hopeless when it could well already be between 2-3C in the near future. As all the recent flash floods, flash fires around the world and temperatures of 50C plus in the Indian Subcontinent this year already illustrate very well are very likely now to be common events in the global weather calendar. Will this renew efforts on agreements and actions to limit climate change at COP 27 hosted in Sharm El-Sheikh by Egypt this coming November?
