Great summer, shame about the heat

Except, of course, it was a bit too mighty elsewhere. The Alps, which are only held together by permafrost, started to melt in July. There were huge avalanches on the Matterhorn and 70 climbers had to be rescued. Later, Mont Blanc was closed. When you remember that maybe four-fifths of the globe’s population depends on water from glaciers (and that includes people in, say, the Mekong Delta), we got problems, and big ones at that.
This year will probably turn out to have been the hottest year ever. There were heat waves almost everywhere. It was so hot that tens of thousands died on mainland Europe, but nobody knows how many.
In Germany, the Rhine dried up in parts and there were huge forest fires in Australia, Portugal, British Columbia and California. Forty five per cent of crops were damaged in some Pakistani states and in India, temperatures hit 49°C. Can you imagine?! Heat and floods killed 600 in China.
In Ireland, well we enjoyed a very warm dry summer. But come autumn, we started to count the cost. The most startling was a series of landslides in Mayo and Galway. Huge areas of mountain slid away in Pollathomas in the Belmullet area and in Derrybrien in the Slieve Aughty mountains in south-east Galway.
In the latter case, acres of bogland slid for 1500 metres through forestry. It was shown on television as it happened – an incredible sight. Locals attribute this to preparatory work on a wind-farm. Others say the dry summer was to blame, drying the roots that attach the bog to the underlying soil and rock, followed by very heavy rain that saturated it and snapped the few remaining roots that were holding it in place.
Whatever caused it, it was pretty spectacular. And a reminder that nothing comes for free, even a fine summer.
But we still hope, don’t we?