Global warming in evidence once again! This year the temperature in Europe's Alpine region has been at its highest since a millennium, causing inconvenience to those on holiday, as well as ski resorts.
Glaciers in the region have become fewer, many ski slopes are still green and flowers still growing, unusual December pollen is troubling those with asthma and several hibernating animal species are struggling to find a cold enough place.
Reinhard Boehm, chief climatologist at Austria's Central Institute for Meteorology and Geo-Dynamics based in Vienna has gone on record to state that this has been the warmest winter in the Alpine area in 1300 years.
His observation is based on a study conducted by a collaboration of climatic institutions in Europe who worked toward reconstructing centuries of weather pattern history.
The areas that they concerned themselves with spread from the Rhone Valley in France in the west to eastern Hungary. They also included the regions that lay between the Nuremberg area in Germany to Italy's Tuscany in the south.
The teams' data found that the regions had usually maintained the expected frigid winter temperatures throughout the 1300 years. The only exception was one thaw that occurred somewhere between 1100 and 1300 AD.
However scientists maintain that a single erratic occurrence is actually part of Nature's unpredictable pattern and should not be a concern or worry. It is when this exception becomes more of the rule that one should focus on the cause and try to make amends.
The group concluded that such significant changes can be first observed for the period ranging the 19th century till the mid 20th century. During this time, interestingly, the first emissions of industrial gases and smoked blocked the direct rays of the sun, causing temperatures to actually fall for a while. It was only later that global warming occurred as it is being experienced today, with the release of greenhouse gases by fossil fuels used for running industries and vehicles.
Mr Boehm emphasized that temperatures have greatly reduced since the 1980s and the trend is one that will continue, despite several nations keeping a check on their methane and carbon dioxide emissions. Meantime, in a bid to cope with these changes and save business, several resorts in Europe are turning creative with many of them providing alternatives such as hiking and trekking camps.
