Weather variability is larger during sunspot minimums and maximums. (the pattern was first observed about 200 years ago.) We are showing signs of coming out of the longest and deepest sunspot minimum I have witnessed. Past that, generalized long term weather prediction is not reliable.
Last year was a terrible gardening year. But my plum and persimmon crop were the best I remember. The garden problem was unusually "cool nights", and unusually wet conditions. This year is beginning on the opposite side, very dry, but still slightly cooler than normal.
I ordered 28 new fruit trees for the family orchard on Monday, and along with them 4 southern highbush blueberry plants. Next week will have a busy couple of days as I plant them. And a few of years of nursing the new plants until we see results.
The big interglacials are usually about 10,000 years long. We are already 5,000 years OVERDUE for the next down turn into colder weather.
That could mean 1 of 3 things. (1) That the whole Ice Age thing is over after 20 some cycles, or (2) We somehow just skipped the end of the interglacial, schmoozed over through that to the first interstadial and are basking in a fool's paradise of undeserved warmth, or (3) we manage to gain control of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases and are keeping the old homestead warm despite nature's worst.
I think the Younger Dryas (an extra period of glaciation and cold in the Northern hemisphere that started a couple of thousand years into the interglacial) created a condition where we actually warmed up faster than normal and are just staying warmer longer, and that pushes back the start of the next glacial period a few thousand years.
Remember, a thousand years isn't even a blink of the eye in geological time!
I wonder if a creeping ice age is more dangerous than a heat wave since more heat is reflected back into space from all the white sticking around and could build on itself rather quickly.
I have to replace two almond trees- they're over 20 years and hardly producing any almonds. I'll look for something in bare-root and start again. I'd love to grow pecans as that is my favorite pie. I hear they grow like weeds in Texas.