The river Pang in Berkshire has had an eventful year. In April, after the driest two consecutive winters in a century, it ran dry. In September, after the wettest summer in a century, it was in spate. Today, with the ground around it sodden, it is subject to a flood warning.
The Pang, some might be tempted to say, is a warning of things to come. The link between drought and flood might not be immediately apparent, but the link between superlatives is. The worst, the highest, the lowest, the windiest — this is, it seems, a time of weather extremes.
So much so that when Hurricane Sandy struck New York, Bloomberg magazine’s cover read: “It’s Global Warming, Stupid.”
Climate scientists are less certain. Myles