Advances in cockpit technology have all but eliminated traditional threats such as jets flying into mountains in bad weather or slamming into the ground because of sudden wind changes on approach.

WSJ: The New Frontier in Air Safety

Also, changes in the speed and pressure of the solar wind cause the termination shock to expand, contract and ripple.

BBC: Voyager impression (Nasa)

None of which, admittedly, is much comfort when the wind changes.

ECONOMIST: Business in America

The strategic changes the company unveiled include closing stores, completing the wind down of its legacy catalog business, realignment of its call center operations and reorganization of its custom decorating business.

FORBES: J.C. Penney Adds Vornado's Roth, Pershing's Ackman To Board

Still, if the history of Thatcherism and Reaganism teaches anything, it is that ideas which are dismissed in one decade as the preserve of right-wing eccentrics can quickly move into the mainstream when the ideological wind changes.

ECONOMIST: Britain and NAFTA: Dream on? | The

It is still possible that changes in wind patterns and longer-term natural climate shifts may slow the currently tumultuous process of decline.

ECONOMIST: Summer ice in the Arctic Ocean is vanishing rapidly

Changes in the winter wind field broke up floating sea ice to create cracks that suggest the "opening of a Venetian blind, " said Dr Serreze.

BBC: Record ice loss in Arctic