the Wallow Fire in Arizona, the largest in the state’s history, which set 800 square miles aflame; Cyclone Yasi, which made landfall in Queensland, Australia as a Category 5 storm; the drought in Somalia that is contributing to an ongoing famine and has displaced tens of thousands; and if that’s not enough, there were the 5,000 birds that inexplicably fell from the sky in Arkansas. And exhale.
     Did I miss anything? Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions we’ll let go in a conversation about weather or climate, though they too point to the idea that Mother Nature isn’t in such a great mood these days. Taken together, it’s enough to make an analytical person think that there might be some kind of pattern taking shape. Consider this year in the context of recorded history and certain trends reveal themselves more clearly. For example, worldwide ocean surface temperatures for July of this year were the 11th warmest on record, and the past decade of Julys has contained the driest conditions for the month in the continental U.S. since the Dust Bowl 1930s, both according to data from NOAA. While Irene was thankfully less impactful than it could have been, consider that the recent nine-year period from 1998 to 2007 saw a record nine Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes, raising concerns about future storms.
     Again, we can stress that no one weather event is a sign of anything but that one weather event, but it sure feels like we’ve moved beyond that single weather event by now, doesn’t it? It’s hard not to think that we’ve finally reached the point where isolated cases of weather, taken together, can serve as symptoms in a general diagnosis. That’s the argument at the center of this piece. It’s my proposal that climate and weather are