Everyone likes to talk about the weather. But lately, as the world has endured a spike in extreme weather events, it has become a more exciting topic of conversation. In the US, the unusually warm winter of 2011–12 has been followed by the worst drought in more than 50 years. In Europe, the same winter began with record-breaking mild temperatures, only to give way to a brutal cold snap in late January and early February that killed more than 800 people across the continent. Flooding in Australia