Climate Change or a Temporary Anomaly?

I recently wrote a post Are We Witnessing a Mass Extinction? However, the weather in the region where I live does not allow me to forget about this topic 😉.

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A Walk That Made Me Think

Last Friday, I went for a walk in the yard with my daughter. Nothing special, a normal walk. We met our dog in the garden. I returned to the house to get a toy for the dog - a brand new soft ball that is very comfortable to chew.

The child was happy to play with the dog with a new toy. She dug the ball, and the dog ran after it all over the garden.

While watching the game, I couldn't help but think that it is the middle of January and we are playing with a ball in the garden. Typical weather for my region during this period is waist-deep snow and more than 10 degrees Celsius of frost.

Watching the almost spring garden, it occurred to me to wonder if my feelings are really confirmed by statistical studies.

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Statistical Weather Data

I decided to review statistical weather data for western Ukraine, namely the city of Kalush. Is warming really happening? Let's find out.

Yearly Temperature Change Kalush

^{meteoblue.com}

Well, statistics show that for the past 42 years, the average monthly air temperature in my region has been steadily increasing. Of course, such a period of time does not allow us to claim about any global changes, but now we can say with certainty that in the near future such winters as now will become the norm rather than the exception.

An interesting fact is that since 2007, the rate of warming has increased significantly.

Yearly Precipitation Change - Kalush

In the last few years, it is clearly visible that the ground water level has also decreased in my region. Sometimes this leads to the fact that it is impossible to get water from the well in the summer. Is this typical? It should be noted here that western Ukraine is traditionally the wettest part of the country due to the proximity of the Carpathians.

In addition, during the years we had plenty of precipitation in spring and autumn, and thunderstorms often visited us in summer. However, during the last few years, the autumns were completely dry, and only occasional rains fell in the summer and spring. I wonder if this is a purely subjective impression?

^{meteoblue.com}

As you can see, the statistics also confirm my subjective impressions.

Monthly Anomalies of Temperature and Precipitation - Kalush

And another interesting statistic regarding the number of weather anomalies:

^{meteoblue.com}

The same trends can be traced here as well.

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Conclusions

Of course, based on the data presented, I cannot draw conclusions about global warming or even more so about mass extinction. However, for myself, I realized that in the coming decade, one should be prepared for the fact that the summer will be hotter, and the winter will not be as terrible as it used to be. In addition, it is worth preparing for summer, given that we will continue to have water problems, groundwater levels will decrease, and rivers will become less and less full.

I took all the weather statistics from meteoblue.com. If you are interested, analyze similar information for your region and make a post about it. I will be interested to see if there are similar trends in other regions of our planet.