Hurricane Irene Makes Landfall - Visible Satellite Image

There is a difference between climate and weather. What happens on one day can be very different from what’s happening across the long-term.
     This is an oft-repeated line in climate science, and it usually serves as the go-to talking point in any discussion begun by the question, “Does this storm have anything to do with global warming?” The average climatologist out there isn’t going to put his or her credibility on the line to tell you that any single weather event can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change, and with that being the case, this same statement is made time and again: “There is a difference between climate and weather…”
     In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, as tree limbs are removed from power lines and water is pumped from basements across portions of the Northeast, let’s put matters of climate aside for a moment and take a quick look at some of the weather that 2011 has brought in its first eight months.
     Deep inhale. There were historic blizzards to begin the year in much of the U.S., including many of the same states affected by Irene; the extreme rains that flooded 18,000 homes in Brisbane, Australia; the floods and mudslides that hit Brazil and caused some 900 fatalities; the monumental tornado season that tore up much of Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Joplin, Missouri; the flooding along the lower Mississippi, after the melting of heavy snowpack, that cost as much as $4 billion in damages; the droughts in places such as Texas, which experienced its driest period in history, prompting its governor to hold a Mayan-style prayer for rain;