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There is an ocean-sailing science fiction novel I’ve been writing in my head now for some time. It posits a future in which the world’s climate has become so unsettled the sport of ocean sailing has been transformed. Sailing in the Vendée Globe has become so dangerous, due to all the furious weather roaming the planet, most competitors race robot boats from behind computer screens safe onshore. The action of the story revolves around the last two sailors crazy enough to sail the race themselves, who are, of course, bitter rivals. The denouement comes when they are shipwrecked together on a remote island in the southern Indian Ocean, where they are confronted by a horde of seemingly sapient penguins, who are in fact “transcended” tourists from an alien planet.
It says something about how the future is unfolding that this scenario now seems increasingly likely.
Take last year’s hurricane season. It was phenomenally dynamic and shattered all sorts of norms. It broke the record for the most named storms in a single season (30), the most named storms to make landfall in the United States (12), the most storms to form in a single month (10 in September), and the most late-season major hurricanes (four in October and November). It also tied many other records, including one for the most storms to rapidly intensify (nine).
The 2020 season was so insanely active every single mile of the U.S. southern and eastern shoreline, from the Mexican border in Texas to the Canadian border in Maine, was at some point under a storm watch or warning. All but five coastal counties ultimately did experience tropical storm-force winds…
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