Soapbox Monday: What's up with weather mayhem?

A five-story brick and glass structure in Norman, Oklahoma, is what Inquirer reporter Anthony Wood calls "the national firehouse for all severe weather alerts."

There, officials make the crucial decisions about when and where to sound the sirens. "And the sirens have been going off as never before," he writes in a story in this morning's paper.

"The atmosphere is in a state of riot," he writes. "The weather has gone crazy."

In the U.S., tornadoes have killed 533 people this year.

What's up? Is this the result of climate change?

Scientists cannot link any one storm to climate change, but they use phrases like "this is the kind of weather the computer models predict will be happening more and more."

The same question arose last winter. If the planet is warming, how could we be having all these snowstorms?

The answer was, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has termed it, we're actually in "global weirding." More rain AND more drought. More heat AND more cold.

We'd like to hear from you. What do you think is happening? And what should we be doing about it? All hands on deck to stem carbon dioxide emissions? Batten down the hatches? Wait and see?

Please post a comment below and let us know your thoughts.