Global warming? You ain't seen nothin' yet. Not with 4,000 women a day reaching the age of sh-h-h ... menopause.

But there's no need to whisper the word anymore. Now they're shouting about what used to be called, in hushed tones, "the change." Menopause is out of the closet, hot flashes are on the front burner, mood swings and cellulite mean magic at the cash register, and botox injections to smooth away wrinkles may soon be available at kiosks in the mall. They're dancing and singing to "Menopause: The Musical" on the Off-Broadway stage. There is no end of creams, lotions and notions to firm what is sagging and rejuvenate what is lagging. There are Web sites that are serious and Web sites that are silly. There are books that educate and books that commiserate, and soon there will be the pop-up activity book "MenOpop," featuring the one, the only, pop-up centerfold uterus. 

"Do we really need this?" That was the cheeky response from a half-dozen women of indeterminate age who were questioned at random and flat out refused to identify themselves. But, yes, apparently we do.

"Absolutely," said Kate Olshever, a psychotherapist in Roslyn Heights. "Any information that women can identify with is good." Olshever feels that humor can be a comfort, particularly for women who are perimenopausal and just starting off on this wild and wacky ride.

"I hear it all the time in my practice," said Olshever. "Well- educated, sophisticated women who know nothing about it. They say, 'I'm not myself, I hate my husband, I'm terribly irritated by everything, I'm depressed.' Then they go to the gynecologist, and they are told, 'Yes, you might be perimenopausal, but it's going to take years.' You hear that, and it's, 'This is my life, I'm gone, I'm shot.'" 

Better to laugh about it. And "MenOpop" wants to help.

"It's a gift/humor/novelty-type book; someone even called it a 'love' book," said Kathy Kelly, 52, the only menopausal member of the four-person partnership that is Fill 'er Up Productions Inc., the Manhattan- based creator of the book.

Aside from the aforementioned centerfold pop-up uterus, the book also has a board game called MenOland, a fantasy spa with pull- tabs, and the menopause fairy, representing "every annoying symptom or person you've ever run into during menopause," said Kelly. 

"MenOpop," the book, will be available after mid-May for $24.99. The retro-style pop- ups, slides and pull-tabs are meant to "take you back to when you were a little girl, almost like Mary Janes," said Kelly. 

Fill 'er Up also has created MenOpop, the Web site, a place where millions of female baby boomers who are sweaty, cranky and sleep-deprived can fulfill their demand for information and their desire for relief. 

The site, www.menopop .com, offers, among other things, Miss Maperiod, a virtual paper doll, and the video game Up the Creek. There is interactive tip swapping and a "shared stories" section, to which mid-life women and their husbands are writing, although the site has been up only since early April. 

"Menopause is one of life's biggest jokes," said Kelly. "You're at a time when you think you have it all together, and then everything gets moved because your body is changing. The world is kind of turning in on you and going, 'Na, na.'

"What used to be talked about behind closed doors is now being dragged out of the closet, kicking and screaming. Let's make it lighthearted."

Lighthearted and heavy- hipped is what you get with Minerva the Menopause Maven. Minerva is the hostess at Heatwave, which you can find by logging onto www.menomaven .com. She resembles a cross between the late, great Milton Berle in drag and Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie."

Created by psychotherapist Jackie Brookman, founder of Heatwave Productions, Heatwave provides a journey from sad, symptom-driven Hormone Hell to Hormone Heights, the land of information, power and self-esteem. There's a detour into Fantasy Land, where chocolate is a vegetable and everyone is 35 years old ... forever.

Heatwave sells a colorfully drawn card deck consisting of 66 cards complete with witticisms, whimsy and weird information, such as dealing with hair growth and hair loss in all the wrong places. There's one your mother never told you about. (The cards sell for $21 a deck on the Web site.) 

Signing onto the Minnie Pauz Web site at www.minniepauz.com offers HRT - not hormone replacement therapy, but Humor Replacement Therapy. The site features Minnie, the Rebel with the Pause, who takes her humor with a dose of seriousness and offers a free club where women can find information, a book club, health news, guest articles and more. It's not just fun and games, but it does give immediate access to 150 cartoons when you sign up. 

And then there's "Menopause, the Musical," now playing at Theatre Four in Manhattan. While the critics have been lukewarm to these four red-hot mamas,who meet in a hen fight over a black lace bra in the lingerie department at Bloomingdale's, the theme alone should pack the house for a while, if not these lyrics, sung to the tuneof "Heat Wave": 

I'm having a hot flash,

A tropical hot flash.

My personal summer is really a bummer,

I'm having a hot flash.

The shelves at the library and at the bookstores hold numerous how-to books on handling menopause, most of which are as much fun as falling off the roof. But a few, such as "Is It Hot in Here, or Is It Me?" by Lorraine D'Abbate and Nancy Kenyon, successfully straddle the line between lighthearted and heavy-handed. 

The authors call themselves WITs (women in transition), and while they ask such questions as "Is anorexia a viable life choice?" they also ask, "If you have never been a size 5, why look to be one at age 47?"

And for our final jocular journey, we need only take a walk through the local pharmacy. Oh, the promises made in that array of creams and lotions, pills and potions. We are told that herein lies the solution to our sagging jowls, our baggy eyes, our thunder thighs, our growing size. There is a fanny-firming formula and a cellulite-control cream; collagen will lift our faces and, consequently, our spirits. Plumping gel will puff our lips, but what can it do for those little lines above the lip? 

Alas, D'Abbate and Kenyon may have the last laugh, when they tell us, "All the estrogen, tofu and oysters in the world will not return us to our 20s."