I was wondering whether to post this under 'anecdotal' but on balance, this is what it amounts to. It may not be dramatic, but I think we're seeing incremental less-livable conditions even in the Atlantic-buffered centre of Wales, UK. Bear with me.
It's June, it's currently raining, and has been for most of the last two weeks, with a temperature similar to many recent winters (about 13-14C). The sun does occasionally emerge, and then it warms up suddenly - if briefly. In contrast, we had a record warm Easter (late April), at something like 28C, followed by a hard frost. The winter was damp, cool, and miserable, with barely any frost or snow.
Rather than being a one-off, parts of this are starting to repeat in most years: a mild, wet winter (unless we get polar vortex incursions), unnaturally warm early spring, followed by a reversal to freezing conditions sometime in April, and then cool, damp summers.
All these are mere annoyances in a globalised world with reliable food imports, but I'm involved with local sustainability, insect recording and the like. These are some of the effects I'm seeing:
--This year the local fruit crop was devastated by the late frosts, which hit the blossoms. Apples are now trying to flower again, but I'm guessing that they probably won't ripen.
--The fruit that has set won't ripen if this weather keeps up through the summer.
--Last summer's near-drought (yes, in Wales) almost killed some of the fruit trees, and another long dry spell will probably knock them out - or another long wet spell will allow fungus to get them instead.
--Local honey bees survived the winter well (anomalous long hot summer last year, after the hard winter), but now have brood to feed, and can barely get out to forage for pollen. Many of the larvae will probably die.
--Insect populations are fluctuating wildly, as pest species like aphids proliferate and are then knocked out by unfavourable weather; this means their predators are hit even harder, because they don't have the reproductive mechanics to proliferate rapidly in good conditions.
--insect abundance generally is heading into boom-and-bust mode; the swarms of gnats or other flies are hardly seen, and pollinators are locally abundant and locally absent. (One a morning survey yesterday, I saw five bumblebees, all within 5 sq. m.; in hours of walking over common land, there were no others.)
It's all down the seasons becoming less well defined, and the fluctuations in weather becoming less predictable, but more entrenched. If we had to survive in my town on local produce, we would be really, really struggling. Last year the harvests were wonderful, but last year was probably an aberration. Some of our weather is, of course, tied to the Arctic as well - I'm sure it's no coincidence that the summer of 2012 (with all that ice transport into the Atlantic killing zones) was also a wash-out here.
This thread is mostly about the dramatic changes, I know, but I just wanted to emphasise that all these minor problems do add up... and they certainly make the place less livable - or, rather, will do in a more sustainably-run world with local food supplies. Even in these otherwise buffered areas like the UK, the effects are mounting up in a really noticeable way.