The cliches about summer and winter being "always exceptional" are from the 1870s. The effects of climate change surely weren't visible then (though I believe t

The cliches about summer and winter being "always exceptional" are from the 1870s. The effects of climate change surely weren't visible then (though I believe the climate was still warming from the "little ice age"). What these cliches suggest to me is that there is a human tendency to either mis-remember the climate of our youth or to misjudge the exceptionality of the current weather (similar somehow to how old people tend to grumble about the "new generations" and how they'll ruin everything- and it's been like that for millennia). Or alternatively, that weather patterns always change, slowly enough to be assumed as stable, but still quickly enough to be noticeable on a long human timescale. In either case, the fact that remarks on the exceptionality of the weather and its difference from the past existed before any CO2 - induced climate change was happening, says that we cannot rely on that type of impression to confirm the scientific measurements about the climate. It's strange we think otherwise, because one of the fundamental tenets of science is that subjective observation is biased and unreliable, and rigorous measures need to be taken to remove that subjective bias from observation.