How the weather affects our daily lives
Children cover their faces as they pump water while dust fills the air during a windstorm in Springfield, Colorado, on March 25, 1935. Wind, heat and drought in the 1930s compounded the Great Depression, turning the United States' breadbasket into a dust bowl in the worst weather event of the century. Picture: AP Photo
We had a good summer in and around the Ox Mountains. There have been no complaints, but the fact remains that there are few things that exercise our minds more than the weather. Everything from our game of golf to saving a field of hay is governed by the weather. Forecasting what tomorrow might bring has become a multi-million euro industry.
While forecasting has got more sophisticated and accurate, and as a result we are better at knowing what is on the way, we haven’t yet found a way to change the weather… at least not in a controlled way.
Before the advent of agriculture, humans paid little heed to the weather. If it rained, they sheltered, if it snowed, they put on an extra bear skin, and if it was sunny, they had a picnic. Hunter-gatherers simply waited for the weather and the seasons to do their stuff and then, when the clouds cleared, they either caught or picked their food. None of this was weather dependent, but all that changed following the introduction of agriculture. Suddenly (well, over the course of a few thousand years), everything became weather dependent.
The first cock of hay to be saved on the lower slopes of the Ox Mountains by our first dairy farmers needed a few good days. Their cows needed a balanced growing season for pasture to grow and recover. Their good summers provided good harvests but their bad summers were a thread to life itself. Oh yes indeed, weather became the most important influence in their lives and it holds that position in our lives to this day.
I was at Malin Head a few times over the years and, probably because of its northerly location, it was invariably a cold and harsh place to be. I was therefore very surprised this summer to read a headline that said 'Malin Head Records Highest Ever Temperature'. Daniel Brennan, in a piece written by Daniel Brennan for (July 14, 2025), states:
These temperatures were not Ireland’s highest; the day before the Malin Head all-time high, the hottest temperatures of the year were recorded at Mount Dillon in Roscommon where they reached 31.1°C. The highest temperature ever recorded in Ireland was 33.3°C, at Kilkenny Castle, in June 1887.
Statistics such as these are peculiar and can be used in all kinds of ways but there is no escaping the fact that six of the warmest years in Ireland have occurred since 1990. Global warming is now undeniable. The strange thing about global warming is that it gives rise to greater extremes, with these extremes being more difficult to predict. We may be in for warmer summers but we also stand the risk of being blown away in autumn and submerged by winter floods.
Statistics do show however, that weather is not just unpredictable day to day, it is also unpredictable decade to decade. Farming, more than any other sector on earth, knows that what was once a mainstay can quickly become a minefield, especially when changing farming practices are mixed with the weather.
The Dust Bowl of 1930s' America was created when a severe and prolonged drought hit the Midwest and Great Plains states of the United States, creating very dry conditions. The lack of rainfall continued for years, leading to extreme heat and dry spells. These conditions, combined with poor farming practices, led to massive soil erosion. Assuming weather conditions would never vary, farmers removed millions of acres of native prairie grasses, which anchored the soil, and replaced them with crops of wheat and corn. This process left the topsoil exposed and vulnerable to being picked up by strong winds and formed into large dust storms. This ‘natural’ disaster occurred during the years of Great Depression which only served to compound the economic hardships suffered at that time.
With the Dust Bowl, the weather simply changed, forming a new natural cycle that could not have been predicted; the farming practice was new but the weather was ancient.
Take the case of Amazonian deforestation. Now, this is one situation where man and his actions have managed to change the weather. Trees not only absorb carbon dioxide from the air, they also store carbon in their roots, leaves and trunks. Trees in the Amazon rainforest hold 48 billion tonnes of carbon. So, when these trees are cut down, it's a double hammer blow on climate; more carbon dioxide is released and less is absorbed.
A news item entitled , by Mark Poynting, a climate and environment researcher for BBC News (2024), explains how losing trees in the Amazon leads to drought.
One of our planet's most vital defences against global warming is itself being ravaged by climate change. It was the main driver of the Amazon rainforest's worst drought in at least half a century, according to a new study. Often described as the 'lungs of the planet', the Amazon plays a key role in removing warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But rapid deforestation has left it more vulnerable to weather extremes. While droughts in the Amazon are not uncommon, last year's event was 'exceptional'.
The trouble with all this is that it is not just the Amazon region that is suffering; the whole planet is affected. The Butterfly Effect is a theory illustrating that a tiny change in one place can lead to large, unpredictable, and sometimes catastrophic change in another. Meteorologist Edward Lorenz coined the term to describe how a tiny atmospheric disturbance, like the flap of a butterfly's wing, could trigger a significant weather event, such as a tornado, at a different time and place in the future. It highlights the sensitive nature of weather systems, making long-term prediction nearly impossible even with complete knowledge of all the variables.
The irony of modern weather forecasting is that while we are better at predicting the weather from day to day, it seems that from one decade to the next, we have become more unsure of what is really happening to our planet and the weather that surrounds it.
