Another spring (I guess) in the era of chaotic climate

my Edmonton yard, April 23

Another spring.  I guess.  In the era of chaotic climate.  My last blog post was April 16 of last year, with a comment two weeks later on the McMurray fire.  I talked about dandelions, and wild blue violets, then about my concerns for a dry summer. This year....I'm looking at a sodden blanket of very wet spring snow.  For the third time in April, a couple of warm days and the snow finally off....followed by grey, drizzle, rain and sleet and finally a new blanket of wet snow covering everything.  In February the weather was lovely- +12 or so, the snow melting fast, sunny.  Then March brought a return to snow/thaw cycles.  Oscillations of temperature and precipitation.  The manitoba maples are poised to open their flowers...but keep getting snowed on.  The aspens tassled already several weeks ago, and the hazel flowers, tiny crimson fringed stars, were already opening.  Now LONG grey and white days.  It is nearly May Day, but no green is to be seen around the fresh blanket of white. The past few years have seemed to feature rapid temperature oscillations throughout the entire year.  Literally, if you don't like the weather, wait a minute.  Core-less winters and summers both.  What seems evident in lived experience is the utter lack of predictability.  This winter, and last, cross-country skiing was poor, sporadically available.  New snow followed by a melt and thaw, then cold temperatures with no snow.  You can't ski on ice.  In February it literally felt like spring this winter and last.  February, traditionally the heart of winter in this northern prairie climate.  This year we had snow on Thanksgiving (early October in Canada) but then barely had snow for Christmas.
The lack of predictability, of melts and hard freezes, has ramifications.  In the North, caribou (and reindeer) have trouble feeding when a midwinter followed by a hard freeze created a layer of ice they can't paw through to find lichens.  River ice, crucial for winter transport in the Canadian north, freezes late and has to be artificially thickened to enable motorized transportation across rivers, as crossing the Dempster Highway at Tsiigehtchic.  Warmer climate can cause heavier snowfalls in some places as well, as warmer air holds more moisture than cold.  Plants can flower too soon, fooled by anomalously warm weather, and then young fruit can freeze in later cold.  Chronic stress can cause trees and shrubs to be more susceptible to fungi and to insect attack.  Pathogenic fungi, and insect pests may increase their range, no longer being killed off by prolonged winter cold snaps.  This is the mountain pine beetle story, pushing widespread change in forest composition across British Columbia and elsewhere in the mountain west. 
It's never as simple as "climatic warming". We experience shifts in weather, and in frequency of different weather events.  On a recent trip to the US, I noted that weather reports featured maps showing occurance of "extreme weather".  This was new for me....but not really surprising, as the "atmospheric rivers" are bringing massive amounts of rain, and flooding, to definitively end California's multi-year severe drought. Rainfall and flooding have reached records in some areas not surpassed in the period of recordkeeping
But climate warming, the aggregate of all of the intensified fluctuations, does drive larger changes, melting of permafrost, increasing aridity, changes in range distributions of everything from algae to trees, and of animals species as well. Pacific salmon are appearing in the Arctic, running up the Mackenzie system at the same time as sockeye numbers are diminishing in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.  Probably small rises in mid Ocean temperatures, and in the temperature of the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean are responsible.
Yesterday was Earth Day. Blessings to our planet and may it continue to sustain (and tolerate ??) us.  Yesterday thousands of scientists and concerned citizens marched for the defense of science, which has been under attack by the climate-denying regime in Washington.  I never imagined I would read of thousands and thousands of scientists and supporters marching [having to march] to underscore the value of science to humanity, to bring the necessity of good science to the public....in part because key segments of the US do not want the inconvenience of having to make significant changes to limit the impacts of our species, and [try to] retain the state of the planet in a pattern that can sustain our own well-being. They would prefer to deny that human action, that business-as-usual, could be causing serious, and likely irreversible, changes to global climate. 
The short-sightedness of the President's pro-coal efforts, at the point when coal use is already declining world-wide, is a small piece of evidence of the self-defeating and unwise courses of action prompted by short-term economic perspectives in reaction to the challenges of actually dealing with ameliorating climate change.  I have deep sympathy for the dislocation of traditional ways of life and can understand the frustration of those from coal mining regions. But a more pro-active response through economic diversification would be a better response than to promote a short lived extension of coal economy, with the inevitable impacts of these last paroxysms of mining on these already much altered landscapes.
We are in uncharted waters.  Our numbers, and our impacts on our home planet are unprecedented.  People argue that our influence on Earth processes is so great that we are actually in a new geologic epoch, the Anthroposcene. (My ex-husband, in a moment of disparagement some twenty two years agocalled it the Obscene some twenty years ago). Climate change and other forms environmental change proceed at global scales. The chemistry of both oceans and atmosphere are changing in response to our activities. We also live in an age of unprecedented communication and interconnection.  People form virtual communities of continental, or even global reach. New modes of communication offer hope as well as threat as we can find those of like mind all over the world, and can promote our diverse messages far beyond the reach of our individual communities.  Chillingly, they can also create echo chambers so we hear only the voices of those with whom we agree, thus polarizing our very senses of reality.  Alt facts are lies.... but depending on where you stand, which is the "alt"? Does truth even exist in a "post-truth century"?  I would argue yes it does. Events like the Oroville Dam flood in California a few weeks ago did happen, even while their causes might be argued.  The March for Science speaks to the necessity of knowing as much as we can, in a dispassionate way, to try to make good decisions for our collective future.