There's no such thing as 'freak' weather any more - and 2023 already looks like a disaster movie | John Vidal

As Storm Elliott rages and 2022 is declared the UK's warmest year yet, why are leaders still in denial about extreme weather?The 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow was based on the idea that the main north Atlantic Ocean current could slow and then reverse, superstorms would flash-freeze the northern hemisphere and a new ice age would abruptly descend. It was dismissed as "profoundly silly", "a ludicrous popcorn thriller" informed by "lousy science", and some scientists argued it depicted meteorological phenomena "as occurring over days, instead of decades or centuries".Storm Elliott, the "bomb cyclone" that hit the US over the holidays, should have made some of those critics uncomfortable. Temperatures in places plunged in just a few minutes as one of the greatest North American storms ever recorded swept down from the Arctic to Mexico, sometimes at hurricane speed. It brought death, chaos and misery for tens of millions of people. Continue reading...