Climate change may be to blame for our dismally wet summer

So far, the summer season of 2012 is shaping up in pretty much the same fashion as it has in four out of the five preceding summers; as a damp squib.

Look at the statistics: the sodden summer of 2007 ended up with the dubious distinction of being the wettest since 1957; 2008 fared scarcely much better with overall rainfall twice the average in many meteorological stations and the wettest August on record recorded in most.

2009 flattered to deceive. After opening with the warmest, sunniest June for almost 40 years, it then nosedived for the rest of the summer and the season was again much wetter than average. 2010 recorded an average summer overall whilst last year — after early fantastical forecasts of a “barbecue summer” to rival the legendary summer of 1976 — ended up being more akin to abysmal 1986, and the coldest summer for between 25 and 49 years, depending on the meteorological station.

Certainly, the Irish summer has traditionally been a fickle, elusive beast and historically has always provided for a mixed bag meteorologically. For every 1976, 1983, 1995 or 2006 there have been some real duds.

But what is truly unprecedented is the fact that so many occurred in such close succession, the only vaguely comparable analysis being the cool, damp summers of 1985 and 1986, but even these have easily been “surpassed” by our recent, dismal run.

I believe that this remitting gloom is down to climate change, rather than a natural climatic variability, as is often posited. It has gone on for too long and it’s not just confined to Ireland. Most of Britain has recorded, so far, its wettest June on record.

Along with the economic situation which has played out in depressing parallel since 2007 it would make you want to permanently emigrate.

I would be very curious to hear the response of a meteorologist to my treatise and hopefully it might be more illuminating than the now redundant “the Irish climate has always been variable” argument put forward to date.

JD Mangan

The Haven

Stillorgan Road

Stillorgan

Co Dublin