When I was a young undergraduate, there was no such thing as a separate climate science discipline - however, we were given an overview of the 'science' that supposedly underpinned it. There is absolutely nothing definitive about it, and the flimsy inconsistencies in logic and massive gaps in knowledge about the complexities of the constitutive feedback mechanisms were obvious back then - and have certainly not become substantially more clear over the past few decades. But the science has now been packaged (through an onslaught of political public messaging propaganda) as some sort of settled, objective reality that cannot be questioned - look what happened to once popular scientists like Davis Bellamy, who dared to oppose the hype! The 'cancel culture', which is now endemic in western society, cut its teeth on the emerging climate agenda! Whilst almost every scientist (probably at the root of the much hyped idea of a 'consensus') will no doubt agree about the basic physics of greenhouse gases being 'radiative forcing agents' that will have some degree of warming effect, there can be no meaningful agreement about how this plays out in one of the most highly complex, fluid systems known - which we term the 'global climate'.
All predictions about our changing climate are just that, predictions. They are poorly simulated by computer models that are only as good as the input data and the theoretic framework - both of which are certainly far from ideal. It is a fact that simulations churn out a huge range of possible future global temperatures (there is more total variation represented by those different predictions than the total temperature increase that has purportedly been measured over the last hundred years!). It is also a fact that the computer simulated predictions are routinely failing to accurately model the temperatures that are subsequently recorded - they appear to be oversensitive to CO2 and constantly need to be retrospectively adjusted. Indeed, global warming alarmism has been built on a long-drawn out process of over-exaggerated claims. It is little wonder that the propaganda has seeped into most people's subconscious to such an extent that it can only be viewed as a reality that cannot possibly be questioned. We have been subjected to psychological warfare on a massive scale - our school children are taught to be depressed and that the planet is doomed. Weather events are only widely reported if they fit with the agenda. When unusually cold temperatures, or excessive snow are experienced they tend not to be given the same attention. Similarly, hurricanes make excellent headlines - but not so long ago an extended hiatus (lasting around ten years, I think) in hurricanes garnered far less media attention.
Regardless of the extent to which human activity is capable of moderating the climate (and it certainly is at a relatively local scale - as is apparent from the 'urban heat island effect') societies need to be resilient enough to cope with extreme swings in weather and climate. Palaeoclimatic studies make it clear that unpredictable weather patterns have impacted over relatively short timescales in the past. The reality is that the complexity of the global climate will continue, as it always has, to incorporate change - sometimes these shifts will be rapid and nature is more than capable of doing this without an anthropogenic contribution (eg Dansgaard-Oeschger events).
I have just finished reading an excellent book by the renown climatologist John Kington (simply called 'Climate and Weather' if anyone is interested in looking it up ). It constitutes a comprehensive survey of British weather stretching back over the last 2000 years. It makes great use of medieval annals and chronicles (such as the English manorial records). After the 'Medieval Warm Period' came what has been termed 'the Little Ice Age' - however, there was a transitional period of time when there were extreme weather fluctuations that included periods that swung between unusual heat and drought and intense storms and floods. It is difficult to summarise with ease, so I shall take a couple of direct quotes from historic sources, by way of illustration, which I hope you will find as interesting as I did (there were so many to choose from!)...
1247 - Matthew Paris, St Albans:
"A long spell of bad weather followed: unseasonable, wintry, stormy, cold and wet, so that both gardeners and farmers complained that spring had been transformed to winter by a backward movement, and they very much feared that they would be deceived in their hopes of crops, plants, fruit trees and corn. This disturbed weather lasted continuously up to the feast of the translation of St Benedict [18 July]. scarcely a single fine day intervening."
1248 very dry summer and autumn - Matthew Paris, St Albans:
"This year passed temperate and calm, filling the barns with abundance of corn and making the presses flow with wine." but...
"In many countries extremely destructive fires raged, reducing towns and cities to ashes...In England, indeed, not to mention other fires, the greater part of the borough of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, together with the bridge, was consumed by a raging fire."
In November, stormy conditions took hold:
"The sea exceeded its normal height by a long way and caused irreparable damage to those living near it...the sea rose three times with a tremendous surge, without any appreciable decrease or ebb. Although it seemed likely this was due to the force of the wind, which was blowing from the sea at the time with extreme violence, nevertheless because it often happened that the wind raged from the sea and yet the sea did not rise as violently as this, older people were astonished at this unheard novelty".
1249 had a very mild wet winter, noted by Matthew Paris, St Albans:
"The whole weather of winter was changed into spring so that neither snow nor frost covered the face of the earth, nor bound it in their customary manner, for two days together; trees were seen sprouting in February and young birds singing and sporting as though it were April."
In 1305 (following a dry May) came a very warm dry summer of which Matthew of Westminster wrote: "In this year there was such burning heat and such drought throughout the summer that the hay failed in most parts of the country and the beasts of the field died for want and a double heat oppressed mankind...The fish died in the ponds, the birds in the woods, and the herds in the fields. And many of the birds of the air were so enfeebled that they were caught without nets or snares by the hands of men"
These swings continued into the 1320s, eg - from Annales Paulini...
"There was a great drought throughout all England both in summer and in other times of the year, so that men led their animals for watering, in some parts of the country, for 3 or 4 leagues. Brooks and streams, wells and marshes, which had previously never dried up, everywhere became dry, so that all the fish perished, In the same way, the water at Havering Mere, formerly bearing great ships, was shrunk to such an extent that it was hardly possible for it to take a little vessel. And the river Thames for nearly the whole year was salt."
Can you imagine some of the media headlines that would spew forth if some of the above examples occurred today? And now imagine the variation that has actually occurred throughout human history at a global scale (aside from the obvious examples such as that illustrated by the rise and fall of the Nile, recorded by the Nilometer) - and yet we have the audacity, simply because we can now garner such information digitally, and in real time, to proffer that such events are "unprecedented"!
The point is, extreme fluctuations in weather are nothing new...what is new is a response that, rather than making our society stronger risks plunging us into extreme energy insecurity and commits us to a form of economic suicide. That is not just plain silly, it is reckless. Even if you buy completely into the whole human-induced global warming package, you would have to acknowledge that reducing our CO2 output to zero tomorrow, which is impossible, would simply have a negligible impact on global temperature increases (according to their own numerical weather prediction models). As reputable scientists like Mark Mills comprehensively demonstrate (eg the energy transition, chasing the net zero fantasy, is not and cannot happen - it is a logistical impossibility. We do not have the capacity to obtain and process the minerals and rare earth metals necessary for EVs, renewable technology etc (mining and processing that, incidentally, are reeking environmental havoc and subjecting many to intolerable health risks). But we are likely to crash our economy in our ludicrous efforts to attain it and, in the process, trash any possibility of being able to cope with whatever the weather throws at us in the future (be the cause natural or not).
There are plenty of eminent scientists who are making huge efforts to draw attention to the fact that the climate alarmist narrative is not underpinned by a rigorous evidence base and that the reality is fudged massively through the public messaging process (see, for example, the work of Dr Judith Curry). However, these scientists are all clear that adopting such a position can be career-ending - it is notable that many scientists wait until their careers are secure, or they have retired, before becoming vocal. The vast majority of grant funding is now completely skewed by the political context. It is beyond obvious (to those who have given any time to look beyond the headlines) that we are being made to dance to the tune of what has become a self-serving 'climate industrial complex' that is embedded at the global scale. Dissenting voices must be crushed at all costs! Even Google search engine algorithms have been modified to ensure that the accepted narrative is prioritised. But one has to be sceptical of anything that purports to claim that the science is settled, and no aspect of it can be challenged.
Anyway, I could go on...but looking above at my ridiculous wordage, I probably should desist!