At the risk of sounding like a kook I began writing about the weird weather in September of last year. The text read like this:  I revisit the coal theme this morning because the La Niña weather pattern combined with numerous volcanic eruptions that put large amounts of ash into the atmosphere has allowed the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn to expand. The result has brought increased hurricane activity soaring temperatures Asian floods droughts (Russia has lost 30% of its wheat crop) and the list goes on. While the current focus is on the unusually warm ...