Pictish Navy

columns from The John O Groat Journal

   FROM THE DECK OF THE PICTISH NAVY BY GEORGE GUNN

“We dread that the storm will blow us empty”. So wrote the Swedish poet Tomas Trasnnströmer and he could have been talking about Caithness over the past two weeks. Very few people can remember such a prolonged period of continuous sub-zero temperatures and such a depth of snow. Certainly there were heavy snow storms in the 1950’s and 60’s. My mother used to have snow-chains for her Highland health board mini and have me or my brother ride shotgun with a shovel and I can remember pushing the school bus out of a drift in Dunnet and the driver shouting to us “C’mon, bouys, hurry up an chump on! Wance Ah’ve sterted Ah canna stop!” So we chased the bus down the brae and covered in snow and laughing we jumped on. The health and safety implication of such an everyday occurrence back then in today’s super-regulated world does not bear thinking about. The sight of a garrulous, tired and emotional motorist emerging from his stranded car on the M8 to growl into the TV cameras “Somebody’s gonnae have to pay fur this!” summed up the contemporary mood.
 Somebody did and it was the Scottish Transport minister Stewart Stevenson. Just what his resignation actually achieved is open to question. Obviously in this secular, post-religious age we are not above a bit of blood sacrifice in the snow. No sooner had the unfortunate Minister promptly packed his briefs than the weather actually got a lot worse. Caithness was cut off. No airport, roads or rail links to the south. At one point it seemed that Scotrail had effectively given up on the north line as even bus cover was withdrawn. As one news reader on Radio Scotland memorably put it, “You’re on your own!”
 Now it could be argued, in so many ways and for quite a while, that Caithness has indeed been on her own. Certainly the concept of a “United” Kingdom fell into the disunited snow as many delivery companies not only announced that they would not be delivering on-line purchases to addresses north of Inverness – in this regard, in Caithness, we are used to being seen to be an island – but that they would not be delivering to Scotland. So just where is the teleportation of Startrek when you need it?
 But maybe the storm has blown us empty? Empty of the expectation, if not the demand, that things will keep on going just as they are no matter what. Country folk in the county have a much more sanguine attitude to big dumps of snow: they just get on with it and they are prepared – have suitable tyres on their vehicles if they have them; have stocks of food and fuel necessary to see them through; wear the appropriate clothing; understand that in winter you get bad weather.
 In the great urban centres of Wick and Thurso this is not quite the case. People walk about the snow-bound streets in high heels and trainers. They are amazed that their darling saloon will not stop when they slam on the breaks and it careers into a wall or a railing, or simply will not start or is frozen solid. The supermarkets begin to look like pre-Soviet East German state food depots before the Wall came down: all empty shelves and shuffling feet. Everyone decides to buy a shovel but no-one really knows what to do with it. Candles are bought, but not matches. A general confusion descends upon the people. What at first was pretty now becomes dangerous and a snow fatigue enters into the general will. Folk get fed up.
 Then comes the longed for thaw but the ordeal is not over. A burst pipe, a fractured water main, a flooded road and all this with only the one glove because the other one has somehow, mysteriously been lost – how many single gloves litter the defrosted pavements of Caithness? All this is somebody’s fault and like the half mad motorist on the M8 disgruntled voices from Pulteneytown to Pennyland are heard to mutter “Somebody’s gonnae have to pay fur this!”
 Not only are we incapable of taking either individual or collective responsibility for our own actions we have reached such a state of environmental alienation that we genuinely feel that nature is conspiring against us and that it is “inconvenient” and that, somehow, it’s the fault of the government, anybody, but not me.
 Well, unfortunately, all of the above is true. The actions and non-actions of governments affect our daily lives and what we, as a species and a society, do from day to day affects the environment. For those of you who draw comfort from the recent hard winter weather that this is a sign that global warming is a myth, think again.
 A recent report by John Mason and the Climate Science Rapid Response team, which incorporates last months global temperatures as published by NASA, gives an idea of what is happening. A deep low blue hung over Iceland, Svalbard, Scandinavia and the island of Britain. Temperatures here dropped from 0.5 to 4 degrees below the average set from 1951. On the other hand western Greenland and northern Canada were a firey red – from between 2 to 10 degrees higher than usual. Between December 3rd and 10th NASA’s weather map showed that parts of Baffin Island and central Greenland were a whopping 15 degrees warmer that the average for the period between 2002 and 2009. The same thing happened last winter.
 The weather we get in our winters is strongly linked to the contrasting pressure between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High. When there is a big pressure difference, which is what we are used to, the winds blow in from the South West which is an Atlantic mild and damp. When there is a smaller pressure difference the air is able to flow straight down from the Arctic. So what, you may ask?
 Our weather is affected by the Arctic Ocean ice in to significant ways. Because it is white it bounces back into space the heat from the Sun and prevents it from heating the sea. It also creates a barrier between the atmosphere and the sea-water and this reduces the amount of heat that can escape from the sea into the air. In 2009 and 2010 the coverage of ice in the Arctic was shown to be much less than the long-term average. The unfrozen sea is darker and absorbed more heat from the Sun and the Arctic Ocean remained clear of ice for longer than is usual and as a result released more heat into the atmosphere. This resulted in higher air pressures which reduced the pressure difference between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High.
 This was all predicted by climate scientists but was ignored as we seem to be mesmerised by the effect global warming is having on the Gulf Stream and in our terror that it may grind to a halt. The warming of the Arctic and the subsequent loss of ocean ice, as we have just experienced, does result in cooler northern European winters. So global warming results in cooling – how mad is that?
 Will these cold winters continue? No-one, not even NASA, is certain. Seven out of the last ten winters have been milder than the average and according to NASA’s data the world has just experienced the warmest January to November since records began and next year looks set to be even warmer. But because it snows upon Englandshire the tabloid press will scream that global warming must be hokum.
 The real downside is that because of the harsh conditions and low temperatures people will actually die this winter – old folk especially. Last year between 25 to 30,000 old people in the UK met a premature end because of falling temperatures and some 4.5 million households experience real fuel poverty, which means they spend over 10% of their income on heating their homes. Due to the unregulated, privatised energy industry and power utility suppliers and the UK Tory government’s tariff plans, this figure will rise.
 “We dread that the storm will blow us empty” wrote the poet. It may not if we are aware that everything we do has an effect. Look out for your elderly neighbour. Watch how much energy you consume. Vote next May for the party which endorses that awareness and in that way we will perhaps see no blood on the snow. You owe it to yourself and the world.
 Have a very good New Year.

   ©George Gunn 2010

 

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