The warm phase of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation is heating the Atlantic waters, causing the current heat wave in central and eastern North America. It is expanding the circulation of the tropical Hadley cell, so that tropical heat is baking parts of the US.

The Pacific La Niña that created a drought in the southern tier of states has gone, but the heat from the Atlantic is exacerbating the drought. Texas and the cotton and livestock industry has been particularly hard hit.

It is looking increasingly probable that La Niña will return by late autumn. When combined with cooling volcanic debris in the polar air mass, it is shaping to be a cool, wet autumn and a very cold winter.

A recent study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), found normal weather variation, excluding extreme events and disasters, cost the US an average of $485 billion a year, 3.4% of the 2008 national economy.

All sectors of the economy and every state are vulnerable to problems from temperature and precipitation changes. Mining and agriculture have the largest sensitivity to weather but the finance, manufacturing, and services sectors lose the most money, an average $60 billion or more in weather sensitivity.

David Fuller's view The Browning Newsletter is fascinating and I commend it to subscribers. Evelyn Browning-Garriss has been extremely accurate in forecasting crop conditions, particularly for the USA.

Any reader can Search the Fullermoney Archive for earlier issues. Just click on the Search link shown upper-left, fourth item down, type Browning in the window provided and click on the Search panel to the right.

Ms Browning-Garriss will be speaking at the Contrary Opinion Forum in October.