The Year of the Flood discussion

I've just completed The Year of the Flood and one (of the many things!) that intrigues me is the change in the climate both here and in Oryx & Crake. Post-waterless flood, there's intense heat in the mornings and daily tropical showers in the afternoons. Of course, the harsh environment heightened the delicacy of life of a post-apocalyptic survivor (man vs nature) but what's not obvious to me is whether this drastic climate change started only after the Waterless Flood or was it the way of the world even during the time of Compounds and Pleeblands and the spliced species? The harsh climate didn't seem to be evident in the pre-Flood narrative.

I thin k the idea was that it had been changing for a while, though it was given much less emphasis than over-population and over-consumption. There was a reference to 'Tex-Mex' refugees. I took to mean that Texas had become uninhabitable, which it wouldn't take much more drought to do.

I can't really see that Crake's 'flood' would impact the climate, so I read it that the tropical conditions you mentioned must have been a consequence of what happened before the flood, even if they were only described from Toby's perspective afterward.

Oryx and Crake also describes in pretty descriptive detail all the terrible things happening to the planet, even before the Flood. The methane from the tundra and what not. I think the world in the book is on the brink of complete environmental breakdown, which is part of the reason Crake made the Crakers in the first place.