This Isn’t the First Time in Human History Our Winters Have Become Milder
This Letter to the Editor, written by CO2 Coalition Member Euan Mearns, was published in The Press and Journal, October 26, 2023:
Sir, with reference to the letter from Ivan Reid, 18th October. He is of course totally correct; our winters have become less snowy and milder than during our youth. I recall the deep snow drifts on Kirriemuir Hill in the 1960s.
And during my grouse beating days in Glen Clova in the 1970s they used to set aside a half day to shoot hares and another half day to shoot capercaillie. Times have changed, and in 2020 illegal shooting of mountain hares (culling) was banned in Scotland (Wikipedia). Thousands used to be shot every year. It does not seem to be necessary to call on climate change to explain the demise of the mountain hare. Hopefully the population will soon recover.
In the countryside I frequent most often in Aberdeenshire and Perthshire, there is an abundance of buzzards and ospreys, red-dear and roe-dear, seals, beavers and sadly many dead badgers along our main roads.
Melting Alpine glaciers are perhaps the most poignant symbol of a slowly warming world. However, a little-known fact is that Alpine glaciers have all but melted completely 12 times in the last 10,000 years (since the end of the last glaciation). This is known through Carbon 14 dating of woody fragments found in the ice. These dates form clusters signifying times when trees grew in the ice basins from where the glaciers now flow.
The exact cause of these cyclical changes in glacier length is unknown, but a likely candidate is cyclical changes to ocean currents. The depth of the last cold and snowy trough occurred around 1850 and warming will likely continue for another few hundred years until the glaciers have all but disappeared as was the case when Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants in 218 BC at a time called The Roman Warm Period. Perhaps Scotland’s climate is affected by these same cyclical forces?
PS With reference to Mr. Hannan, 19th October: pre-industrial CO2 in the atmosphere was 0.028% and today it is 0.042%. 3% is on the threshold of being harmful, but current levels are nowhere near this dangerous threshold.
Dr Euan Mearns
Aberdeen