Autumn Fondue
According to an article in this morning’s Le Monde, autumn 2006 (defined as September, October, November) has been the warmest fall in 500 years throughout Europe.
The average temperature over and above the daily average during the period was 2.9° C. in France, which beats the former warmest autumn record of 1.4° daily (which was in 2005, for those of you who love surprising factoids). Similar conclusions can be drawn from examining British and Scandanavian climate records.
Climatologists Elena Xoplaki and Juerg Luterbacher of the University of Berne (Switzerland) have created an historical climate model for Europe going back to the year 1500, using diverse historical references such as harvest dates, flowering periods, etc. which I suppose is how monks spent their time recording back then.
They point out that
Autumn 2006 was warmer even than 1772 and 1938, 2 particularly warm autumns, historically.
I for one am very excited about living in such momentous times, so full of world records.
