Local Climate Change Arrives

My gently gurgling burn

Copernicus chart of temperature change.

Earlier this week we heard that the average temperature change had increased by 0.5°C this year and on 86 days it exceeded by 1.5°C the pre-industrial average set as the threshold by the Paris Agreement in 2015. It is quite an exceptional acceleration in global warming. All year we have been seeing evidence of fires, floods, droughts and damage to nations across the world. In Scotland, the most noticeable change in recent years has been almost frost and snow-free winters, record hot spells in summer, forest fires in early summer when we have drier weather and even hose pipe bans. The last week has been a reprise of recent autumns with heavy and continuous rainfall leading to floods and travel disruption.

It rained much of yesterday and all night, this morning we were warned that there could be up to 7 inches of rain in the central belt. The burn at the side of the house, normally no more than a modest gurgle has become a raging torrent, whizzing down empty plastic fertilizer containers from the farms upstream and tearing out soil and autumn foliage. I squished across the garden and into the gully and watched the burn breaching the banks. It is by some way the highest it has been in the almost five years since we moved here. It is still a good 10 metres below the house but a worrying indicator of the damage that must be taking place across much of Central Scotland today. 

Two fire appliances and an ambulance have hurtled past already with their sirens wailing. Aberfoyle must be suffering yet again, the previous flooding events have resulted in lots of consultants' reports but no action. Yet more evidence that our centralised government in Scotland is out of touch.