La Niña reigns. It has been a devestating spring in the southeastern United States. Some people feel like they haven't been out of their storm cellars longer than they have been in them. Worse yet, some people do not have storm cellars, and tornadoes have buzzed down whole towns--not just neighborhoods, but whole communities. There have been days where there were more than 100 tornadoes sighted and touched down. Hundreds are dead and thousands are homelees.
This is not comparable to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, either in terms of magnitude of the disaster nor in the human and economic loss. But it is a significant reminder that while there are many things about our lives that we can and do control, and there are many advances we have made in the past century, we still do not have a way to combat the climate. As the world's oceans warm up, unpredictable but constant climactic change will be the standard fare. This year it is a protracted La Niña, next year it will be something else.
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