She explains that cold-weather conditions have prompted some confusion over the use of the phrase "global warming." In the US, where it is used more often, some advocates suggest replacing it with the term "global weirding."

There's a broad scientific consensus that climate change will bring us a wide variety of freakish weather in the years ahead. Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist, likes the term "global weirding" to describe what's happening and what's coming. So do I. And what we're experiencing right now is just an overture to the loud, raucous, percussion-heavy climate symphony that lies ahead for us.

"It could be colder, it could be drier, it could be wetter, it could be warmer," said Katy Moss Warner, the new president of the horticulture society. If you can't exactly point to the climate changes as evidence of global warming, perhaps you can call it global weirding.