Climate change is supposed to be about climate, you’d think — not weather. After all, climate is what you expect in the long term, like how bad the average winter will be; weather is what you get day to day, like whether there will be frost on Halloween night. Predicting even next week’s weather often seems like a crapshoot.
But seasoned gamblers know not to fold. All the cards in play suggest that climate change isn’t only about the long-term future, but can noticeably alter the planet’s day-to-day weather as well — to the extreme.
It doesn’t take dealer smarts to recognize that 2011 has been a year of wild weather. The United States alone has seen 10 billion-dollar disasters so far, starting with the Groundhog Day blizzard that paralyzed all creatures in Chicago, both below ground and above. The Federal Emergency Management Agency declared a record 87 major disasters.
Texas saw its worst drought in recorded history; tree ring records suggest only one other summer since 1550 has been as severe. Meanwhile, too much rain was the problem in the upper Midwest and along the Mississippi, where rivers breached their levees and flooded wide swaths. And in August, downpours from Hurricane Irene drenched towns in Vermont and elsewhere.