It may also be helpful to clarify what is meant by illness and disease and how modern medicine has completely misunderstood them.
The presentation of symptoms is the healing, the re-balancing and the expulsion of both external toxins and the products of internal stress.
There are only a small number of ways that the body can do this; through its orifices and skin and by fever, inflammation, mucus, cough, tiredness (stimulus to rest) and rapid cell division.
There will be ethnic differences in the bodies ability to rebalance depending on socio-economic factors. There may also be differences in the extent to which they have faith in doctors and thus the extent of exposure to harmful and possibly fatal treatments. After receiving a 'diagnosis' of one disease with one cause (ridiculous!) or a positive test result for an arbitrary amount of sequences or proteins never shown to come from a pathogenic entity-some may submit to forced ventilation, AZT or remdisivir etc.
And Zoombie Anthrax? Really? The toxins of bacteria from decaying animals may be damaging but it's not a contagious disease. Just like the coming bird flu hoax, both wild and farmed animals, not just factory farmed ones, become sick for all sorts of reasons, there's no evidence it's a contagious entity. https://jowaller.substack.com/p/h5n1-avian-flu-and-not-a-glimmer 'Tests' that claim to diagnose a disease from common symptoms merely amplify genetic sequences and proteins that have never beenn shown to come from a transmissible pathogenic particle. https://jowaller.substack.com/p/x-ray-crystallography-and-3d-computer?utm_source=publication-search
Hi Jo. Having read a couple of your articles in addition to the three above, I am aware we have different takes on Covid, and possibly viruses in general. While I have plenty of problems with contemporary western medicine, I am not a vaccine skeptic. I've had every Covid shot with no adverse reaction, never had the disease, was fully vaccinated as a child, and too well remember the refrigerator trucks in NYC. I feel it the efficacy of vaccines in general have been well established, the former scourge of polio leaps to my mind.
That said, I also recognize the profit motive of the pharma industry and am disappointed by a healthcare system that treats the symptoms rather than the causes. Many years ago, I read an interview of a doctor in The Sun, claiming cancer is a deliberate for-profit industry. I remember his argument being compelling. Human health shouldn't be run by the profit principle. I'm not closed-minded to conspiracy theories, too many from the past have been proven, but if I had to do it over again, based on my experience, I would get the Covid jabs.
Industrial farming puts us in close quarters to animals in inhumane conditions, as you point out. Viruses mutate quickly to find advantage. We have also encroached further and further into the natural world, with more exposure to wild animals. From what I am aware of, AIDS was a jump from monkeys.
Not being a virologist or making that a focus of my work, I can't refute your opinion, but nor have you convinced me. I appreciate the comments, though.
We seem to agree on the climate emergency, which is the biggest pressing issue to my mind. Not managing it is already creating and leading to new crises which will grow in power and devastation. If humanity is to survive, tolerance, respect and cooperation are key. Our problems boil down to behavior, ultimately. Without managing this crisis, nothing else matters.
I took a glance at F. William Engdahl's Wikipedia profile and your articles, but me being me, cannot respond to them well. They pose questions that would require thorough investigation for to answer responsibly.
I'm glad we can communicate respectfully, too. Divisive, hateful exchanges hurt everyone.
Hiya, I would be very wary of what it says on the Pharma-marketing-website Wikipedia but hey ho!
I think I am like you, I have to understand and I need to look into the evidence of what of people are saying. For me the evidence for 'covid' just wasn't there. I hate being lied to and I hate being taken for a fool and lucky for me I have some background in experimental design and logical thinking. I hate it that pharma are still getting away with all the shit they've done over the years.
Yes, I've had to gen up climate science and physics what with all the climate denial targeted at Health Freedom. Mind you it wasn't that difficult to refute the tired old mindless tropes and nonsense. That was a major indication that it was a targeted project by industry and not a genuine disagreement among scientists.
The climate emergency is pressing and we are up against seemingly overwhelming resources from industry. For many people, including us in the UK and US it may be impossible to halt the progress of the climate crisis nor to manage its effects, who knows.
I wouldn't say though that nothing else matters. The truth still matters, at least to me!
By nothing else matters, I mean global warming is on a path to do irreparable harm to agriculture, supply chains and economies. It's already driving migration, and killing at the least tens of thousands. This sets the stage for endemic inflation and unrest, which threatens any semblance of free societies, which are already under fascist pressure in quite a few cases. Pressure isn't limited to global warming, of course. Species extinction rates are off the charts, and wealth inequality has never been greater.
Many people believe we can't or won't halt the climate emergency. Every day that goes by without reducing emissions brings us closer to collapse. The truth always matters. I started this project three years ago because the mainstream media does a lousy job of reporting the climate crisis.
Capitalism and neoliberal economics are toxic for the planet and toxic for people, but the ones at the top who grossly benefit from the system have no intention of stopping.
This is a fantastic piece of writing, Geoffrey. I can't thank you enough for bringing research and writing skill into the climate collapse space. It's hard enough reading elsewhere about the permafrost carbon bomb or weakening AMOC that will be our undoing. It's even worse to be forced to consume the tragedy through atrocious writing! You are an oasis in the climate storm.
Feedback like this helps keep me going, Margi, I can't express how much. Knowing what you have been through makes your support incredibly meaningful. I hope your hard work is going well. Seriously, this work can be tiring. Your words make a difference.
Thank you, I agree, this one is very scary. Climate change in general should be front page news, but isn't. There are numerous systemic reasons for this, which is why I took it up. My voice is tiny, we need a chorus.
I'm not a climate scientist, so it's not up to me to say, but I suspect it has tipped or is very close. Methane, 80x more powerful than CO2, stays in the atmosphere 10 to 12 years, CO2 hundreds. Even if we could stop burning FFs today, warming is locked in.
It appears we will far exceed the 1.5° C limit the IPCC called for.
Let's make sure Kamala gets elected. I'd like to see Mark Kelly be the VP, a former astronaut that knows just how thin our atmosphere is. Both get high marks from the League of Conservation Voters.
A lot of information to absorb. Eye-opening, thought-provoking, and more than a little bit scary. Some I already knew; and some was new to me, so I will explore it further. Thank you for spending the time to put it all together.
It is indeed scary. This kind of information and its ramifications are what the media will never give us. It's not pleasurable work, but it's necessary. My eyes are open and there's no shutting them. Kudos to all others trying to get these messages out, particularly those on the front line getting jailed for calling out Big Oil, bad banks and corrupt politicians.
It’s pretty clear. It’s going to be a LOT HOTTER than the Moderates thought. They were WRONG about EVERYTHING. Including how BAD melting the Permafrost is going to be.
Permafrost isn’t a feature, it’s a CARBON BOMB. And we just set it off.
Consider this.
There is NO Permafrost older than 700,000 years. What does that tell us?
That before 700,000ya, Greenland and the High Arctic used to regularly get HOT enough that there was NO PERMANENT permafrost area in the High Arctic. If one formed during a cold period, it melted again during the next HOT period.
It wasn’t until just 800,000ya that the Earth cooled down enough for a PERMANENT Permafrost Zone to form.
Which means, that 700,000 years of Organic Carbon have ACCUMULATED in the Permafrost Zone. In fact, the “Boreal Zone” has functioned as a carbon sink for so long that if you burned all of the oil available in all the reserves around the world, you would still release less carbon than the boreal forest and permafrost is currently holding.
The organic matter once trapped on ice suppresses an estimated amount of organic carbon around 1,672 gigatonnes. Which is equivalent to all of the organic carbon contained in ALL of the land plants on the WHOLE planet PLUS what’s in the atmosphere at this moment.
FYI - A SINGLE gigatonne is roughly the mass of all the land mammals in the world other than humans. It’s also roughly 2x the mass of all of the humans in the world
Half of this frozen organic matter is found in the first 3 meters of the permafrost and the remaining is in deposits that extend up to 30 meters deep.
Yedoma permafrost in North East Siberia is rich in organic carbon, being responsible for one-third of the total organic carbon on Earth (Altshuler, Goordial, & Whyte, 2017).
In 2020 the Arctic Institute warned that a 3 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures could melt 30 to 85 percent of the top permafrost layers that exist across the Arctic region.
The Arctic has ALREADY WARMED +4C on AVERAGE. Parts of it have warmed +7C.
Thank you, Richard, I agree, it's a carbon bomb and the methane is no laughing matter, either. I hear you, "NO permafrost older than 700,000 years." Seems to me that this is the scariest of tipping points, combining the flip of a CO2 absorber to a massive emitter, AND affecting AMOC. I appreciate the input and look forward to reading your articles. It's clear you have been studying climate change for quite some time.
Look at the LEtPTG (Latitudinal Equator to Pole Temperature Gradient) stuff first would be my advice. It's almost unknown now but in 1998 GISS said this.
Consider how little we knew as late as 1998.
Latitudinal temperature gradients and climate change.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 103, NO. D6, PAGES 5943-5971, MARCH 27, 1998
The first sentence of this paper asks.
“How variable is the latitudinal temperature gradient with climate change?”
Then goes on to tell us that;
“This question is second in importance only to the question of overall climate sensitivity. Our current inability to answer it affects everything from understanding past climate variations, and paleoclimate proxies, to projections of regional effects of future greenhouse warming [Rind, 1995].”
THIS WAS IN 1998!
By 1998 we had “irrevocably” altered the ENERGY STATE of the Earth’s Climate System and we still DID NOT KNOW what the consequences of that action were going to be. What we didn't know in 1998, was how the Climate System would respond to the additional HEAT ENERGY we were forcing into it.
There were three main theories.
The North Pole would just ‘eat’ the extra HEAT ENERGY.
The temperature at the North Pole would go up, “slightly”.
The temperature at the North Pole would go up, “A LOT”.
What was starting to scare Climate Scientists in 1998, was that they had believed the answer would be #1 or #2. But new fossil evidence, indicated it was #3.
Paleontologist were finding fossils of palm trees and alligators living above the Arctic Circle during the PETM. Around an Arctic Ocean that never froze, even in Winter.
Under theories #1 and #2, atmospheric CO2 levels would have had to have been around 20,000ppm for temperatures in the Arctic to get that warm.
Even in 1998 there was NO EVIDENCE to support that idea. Instead, evidence was accumulating that indicated atmospheric CO2 levels had NEVER gone above 2,000ppm in over 500 million years.
Which meant that the “Climate Sensitivity” to CO2 had to be MUCH higher than they thought. Or, that temperatures in the Polar Zones, particularly in the Arctic, could increase “much more” and “much faster” than projected in the models.
In the 1998 paper, Rind is clearly aware of this problem and its implications. However, he does not challenge the prevailing paradigm of the “Climate Moderates”. Instead, he articulates the issue and calls for
“improving the quality and geographic distribution of paleoclimate observations and the representation of physical processes, particularly convection, sea ice, and ocean circulation, in GCMs for future prediction”.
THIS WAS DONE. THE RESULTS ARE IN.
Some Thoughts on Global Climate Change: The Transition from Icehouse to Hothouse Conditions
From book: Earth History: The Evolution of the Earth System (2016).
Rind’s “worst case” fears of 1998, turned out to be our “Climate Reality”.
Now, what happens if we dump enough CO2 into the atmosphere to raise the GMT by +4C?
At the North Pole temperatures go up about +20C. Shrinking the difference between the Equator and the NP from 45C to just 25C. Meaning that if is 77F at the Equator we would expect it to be about 32F at the North Pole.
This is what the “near term” future of the Arctic looks like. It’s a LOT hotter than the rest of the planet.
When Biden approved Willow, I researched and wrote an article, which in the process uncovered numerous, strangely available military reports and analysis.
There was awareness of what we are witnessing at the top levels long ago. It's simply disgusting that other human beings, with their knowledge, have brought us to this.
GREAT ARTICLE. Very interesting analysis and excellent links to sources. The military stuff is pure gold. As you said, I will reading it for "months".
You might like this as a companion piece to your article. I wrote it in 2022.
031 – If you suggest that the war in Ukraine is related to Climate Change, people tell you Putin doesn’t care about “Climate Change”. People are idiots.
It has a section discussing Russia's Arctic coastline.
Russia in the Arctic — A Critical Examination
Russia is dominating the Arctic, but it’s not looking to fight over it
“Russia’s coastline accounts for 53% of Arctic Ocean coastline and the country’s population in the region totals roughly 2 million people.”
Russia’s Arctic coast loses 7,000 hectares annually due to climate changes.
A new study conducted at the Moscow State University confirms that the Arctic permafrost along the country’s northern coastline is thawing at terrifying speeds.
What an ice-free Arctic really means, and why it matters so much
Russia Flexes Its Regional Muscle As Arctic Ice Melts
Ice-free Arctic summers now very likely even with climate action
“Scientists surprised by latest results but say carbon cuts remain vital to prevent ice loss becoming permanent”
What is behind Russia’s interest in a warming Arctic?
“The last untapped area for shipping routes and exploitation is opening up and leading to new geopolitical tensions.”
I read 031. Thanks. It pretty much lines up with what I see. Ukraine isn't just a battle about NATO, it's about a country built on thawing permafrost. Russia has been battling that for decades, and now there is no staving it off by elevating buildings off the ground and using piers that cool the anchoring ground. Putin may be looking at Ukraine as not just "traditional" Russian territory, but a life raft. We'll never see that discussion in western media.
Good factual article. We can no longer allow governments to ignore this
It may also be helpful to clarify what is meant by illness and disease and how modern medicine has completely misunderstood them.
The presentation of symptoms is the healing, the re-balancing and the expulsion of both external toxins and the products of internal stress.
There are only a small number of ways that the body can do this; through its orifices and skin and by fever, inflammation, mucus, cough, tiredness (stimulus to rest) and rapid cell division.
There will be ethnic differences in the bodies ability to rebalance depending on socio-economic factors. There may also be differences in the extent to which they have faith in doctors and thus the extent of exposure to harmful and possibly fatal treatments. After receiving a 'diagnosis' of one disease with one cause (ridiculous!) or a positive test result for an arbitrary amount of sequences or proteins never shown to come from a pathogenic entity-some may submit to forced ventilation, AZT or remdisivir etc.
And Zoombie Anthrax? Really? The toxins of bacteria from decaying animals may be damaging but it's not a contagious disease. Just like the coming bird flu hoax, both wild and farmed animals, not just factory farmed ones, become sick for all sorts of reasons, there's no evidence it's a contagious entity. https://jowaller.substack.com/p/h5n1-avian-flu-and-not-a-glimmer 'Tests' that claim to diagnose a disease from common symptoms merely amplify genetic sequences and proteins that have never beenn shown to come from a transmissible pathogenic particle. https://jowaller.substack.com/p/x-ray-crystallography-and-3d-computer?utm_source=publication-search
Hiya - there's no evidence that pathogenic entities (that 'survive' in permafrost) were responsible for killing anyone in 1918 nor to have caused any disease since https://jowaller.substack.com/p/how-does-transmission-of-illness
Hi Jo. Having read a couple of your articles in addition to the three above, I am aware we have different takes on Covid, and possibly viruses in general. While I have plenty of problems with contemporary western medicine, I am not a vaccine skeptic. I've had every Covid shot with no adverse reaction, never had the disease, was fully vaccinated as a child, and too well remember the refrigerator trucks in NYC. I feel it the efficacy of vaccines in general have been well established, the former scourge of polio leaps to my mind.
That said, I also recognize the profit motive of the pharma industry and am disappointed by a healthcare system that treats the symptoms rather than the causes. Many years ago, I read an interview of a doctor in The Sun, claiming cancer is a deliberate for-profit industry. I remember his argument being compelling. Human health shouldn't be run by the profit principle. I'm not closed-minded to conspiracy theories, too many from the past have been proven, but if I had to do it over again, based on my experience, I would get the Covid jabs.
Industrial farming puts us in close quarters to animals in inhumane conditions, as you point out. Viruses mutate quickly to find advantage. We have also encroached further and further into the natural world, with more exposure to wild animals. From what I am aware of, AIDS was a jump from monkeys.
Not being a virologist or making that a focus of my work, I can't refute your opinion, but nor have you convinced me. I appreciate the comments, though.
Hiya Geoffrey, yes the scourge of polio- caused by Rockefeller and DDT! https://jowaller.substack.com/p/toxicology-vs-virology-the-rockefeller?utm_source=publication-search. And AIDS caused by life-style, since banned poppers and poverty https://jowaller.substack.com/p/the-importance-of-intellectual-freedom
So glad that we can respectfully disagree and still learn from each other- it's quite rare on social media.
Jo
We seem to agree on the climate emergency, which is the biggest pressing issue to my mind. Not managing it is already creating and leading to new crises which will grow in power and devastation. If humanity is to survive, tolerance, respect and cooperation are key. Our problems boil down to behavior, ultimately. Without managing this crisis, nothing else matters.
I took a glance at F. William Engdahl's Wikipedia profile and your articles, but me being me, cannot respond to them well. They pose questions that would require thorough investigation for to answer responsibly.
I'm glad we can communicate respectfully, too. Divisive, hateful exchanges hurt everyone.
Hiya, I would be very wary of what it says on the Pharma-marketing-website Wikipedia but hey ho!
I think I am like you, I have to understand and I need to look into the evidence of what of people are saying. For me the evidence for 'covid' just wasn't there. I hate being lied to and I hate being taken for a fool and lucky for me I have some background in experimental design and logical thinking. I hate it that pharma are still getting away with all the shit they've done over the years.
Yes, I've had to gen up climate science and physics what with all the climate denial targeted at Health Freedom. Mind you it wasn't that difficult to refute the tired old mindless tropes and nonsense. That was a major indication that it was a targeted project by industry and not a genuine disagreement among scientists.
The climate emergency is pressing and we are up against seemingly overwhelming resources from industry. For many people, including us in the UK and US it may be impossible to halt the progress of the climate crisis nor to manage its effects, who knows.
I wouldn't say though that nothing else matters. The truth still matters, at least to me!
Jo
By nothing else matters, I mean global warming is on a path to do irreparable harm to agriculture, supply chains and economies. It's already driving migration, and killing at the least tens of thousands. This sets the stage for endemic inflation and unrest, which threatens any semblance of free societies, which are already under fascist pressure in quite a few cases. Pressure isn't limited to global warming, of course. Species extinction rates are off the charts, and wealth inequality has never been greater.
Many people believe we can't or won't halt the climate emergency. Every day that goes by without reducing emissions brings us closer to collapse. The truth always matters. I started this project three years ago because the mainstream media does a lousy job of reporting the climate crisis.
Capitalism and neoliberal economics are toxic for the planet and toxic for people, but the ones at the top who grossly benefit from the system have no intention of stopping.
Yes, everything you say is true.
This is a fantastic piece of writing, Geoffrey. I can't thank you enough for bringing research and writing skill into the climate collapse space. It's hard enough reading elsewhere about the permafrost carbon bomb or weakening AMOC that will be our undoing. It's even worse to be forced to consume the tragedy through atrocious writing! You are an oasis in the climate storm.
Feedback like this helps keep me going, Margi, I can't express how much. Knowing what you have been through makes your support incredibly meaningful. I hope your hard work is going well. Seriously, this work can be tiring. Your words make a difference.
I fully empathise with the exhaustion. Writing is HARD, and the subject is even harder. I appreciate your efforts more than you know.
Of all the potential tipping points that freak me out and keep me up at night, what’s going on with the permafrost may be the most terrifying.
Excellent reporting on something that REALLY NEEDS to be front page news!
Thank you, I agree, this one is very scary. Climate change in general should be front page news, but isn't. There are numerous systemic reasons for this, which is why I took it up. My voice is tiny, we need a chorus.
Thank you. Are we at the permafrost tipping point of self-perpetuating consequences, even if the warming stops?
I'm not a climate scientist, so it's not up to me to say, but I suspect it has tipped or is very close. Methane, 80x more powerful than CO2, stays in the atmosphere 10 to 12 years, CO2 hundreds. Even if we could stop burning FFs today, warming is locked in.
It appears we will far exceed the 1.5° C limit the IPCC called for.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/08/world-scientists-climate-failure-survey-global-temperature
This excellent article from the New Yorker gives a very personal sense of what's happening in Siberia. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/the-great-siberian-thaw
Very sad. Thank you for the response.
Let's make sure Kamala gets elected. I'd like to see Mark Kelly be the VP, a former astronaut that knows just how thin our atmosphere is. Both get high marks from the League of Conservation Voters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/07/23/kamala-harris-climate-change-environment/
A lot of information to absorb. Eye-opening, thought-provoking, and more than a little bit scary. Some I already knew; and some was new to me, so I will explore it further. Thank you for spending the time to put it all together.
It is indeed scary. This kind of information and its ramifications are what the media will never give us. It's not pleasurable work, but it's necessary. My eyes are open and there's no shutting them. Kudos to all others trying to get these messages out, particularly those on the front line getting jailed for calling out Big Oil, bad banks and corrupt politicians.
Good article. I had a few minor points I would quibble with but you did a much better job than most people do when discussing the permafrost issue.
Here are my thoughts on the topic. You might find them helpful/useful.
050 - The Earth’s Climate System - A Short Users Guide. Part 03. Permafrost Melting — The role of permafrost in the Climate System.
https://richardcrim.substack.com/p/the-crisis-report-50
054 - Unclothing the Emperor : Understanding “What’s Wrong” with our “Climate Paradigm”. Part 3 - Latitudinal Gradient Response and Polar Amplification.
https://richardcrim.substack.com/p/the-crisis-report-54
056 - Unclothing the Emperor : Understanding “What’s Wrong” with our “Climate Paradigm” - Part 4. The PERMAFROST — is MELTING, “faster than expected”.
https://richardcrim.substack.com/p/the-crisis-report-56
It’s pretty clear. It’s going to be a LOT HOTTER than the Moderates thought. They were WRONG about EVERYTHING. Including how BAD melting the Permafrost is going to be.
Permafrost isn’t a feature, it’s a CARBON BOMB. And we just set it off.
Consider this.
There is NO Permafrost older than 700,000 years. What does that tell us?
That before 700,000ya, Greenland and the High Arctic used to regularly get HOT enough that there was NO PERMANENT permafrost area in the High Arctic. If one formed during a cold period, it melted again during the next HOT period.
It wasn’t until just 800,000ya that the Earth cooled down enough for a PERMANENT Permafrost Zone to form.
Which means, that 700,000 years of Organic Carbon have ACCUMULATED in the Permafrost Zone. In fact, the “Boreal Zone” has functioned as a carbon sink for so long that if you burned all of the oil available in all the reserves around the world, you would still release less carbon than the boreal forest and permafrost is currently holding.
The organic matter once trapped on ice suppresses an estimated amount of organic carbon around 1,672 gigatonnes. Which is equivalent to all of the organic carbon contained in ALL of the land plants on the WHOLE planet PLUS what’s in the atmosphere at this moment.
FYI - A SINGLE gigatonne is roughly the mass of all the land mammals in the world other than humans. It’s also roughly 2x the mass of all of the humans in the world
Half of this frozen organic matter is found in the first 3 meters of the permafrost and the remaining is in deposits that extend up to 30 meters deep.
Yedoma permafrost in North East Siberia is rich in organic carbon, being responsible for one-third of the total organic carbon on Earth (Altshuler, Goordial, & Whyte, 2017).
In 2020 the Arctic Institute warned that a 3 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures could melt 30 to 85 percent of the top permafrost layers that exist across the Arctic region.
The Arctic has ALREADY WARMED +4C on AVERAGE. Parts of it have warmed +7C.
Thank you, Richard, I agree, it's a carbon bomb and the methane is no laughing matter, either. I hear you, "NO permafrost older than 700,000 years." Seems to me that this is the scariest of tipping points, combining the flip of a CO2 absorber to a massive emitter, AND affecting AMOC. I appreciate the input and look forward to reading your articles. It's clear you have been studying climate change for quite some time.
Look at the LEtPTG (Latitudinal Equator to Pole Temperature Gradient) stuff first would be my advice. It's almost unknown now but in 1998 GISS said this.
Consider how little we knew as late as 1998.
Latitudinal temperature gradients and climate change.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/97JD03649
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 103, NO. D6, PAGES 5943-5971, MARCH 27, 1998
The first sentence of this paper asks.
“How variable is the latitudinal temperature gradient with climate change?”
Then goes on to tell us that;
“This question is second in importance only to the question of overall climate sensitivity. Our current inability to answer it affects everything from understanding past climate variations, and paleoclimate proxies, to projections of regional effects of future greenhouse warming [Rind, 1995].”
THIS WAS IN 1998!
By 1998 we had “irrevocably” altered the ENERGY STATE of the Earth’s Climate System and we still DID NOT KNOW what the consequences of that action were going to be. What we didn't know in 1998, was how the Climate System would respond to the additional HEAT ENERGY we were forcing into it.
There were three main theories.
The North Pole would just ‘eat’ the extra HEAT ENERGY.
The temperature at the North Pole would go up, “slightly”.
The temperature at the North Pole would go up, “A LOT”.
What was starting to scare Climate Scientists in 1998, was that they had believed the answer would be #1 or #2. But new fossil evidence, indicated it was #3.
Paleontologist were finding fossils of palm trees and alligators living above the Arctic Circle during the PETM. Around an Arctic Ocean that never froze, even in Winter.
Under theories #1 and #2, atmospheric CO2 levels would have had to have been around 20,000ppm for temperatures in the Arctic to get that warm.
Even in 1998 there was NO EVIDENCE to support that idea. Instead, evidence was accumulating that indicated atmospheric CO2 levels had NEVER gone above 2,000ppm in over 500 million years.
Which meant that the “Climate Sensitivity” to CO2 had to be MUCH higher than they thought. Or, that temperatures in the Polar Zones, particularly in the Arctic, could increase “much more” and “much faster” than projected in the models.
In the 1998 paper, Rind is clearly aware of this problem and its implications. However, he does not challenge the prevailing paradigm of the “Climate Moderates”. Instead, he articulates the issue and calls for
“improving the quality and geographic distribution of paleoclimate observations and the representation of physical processes, particularly convection, sea ice, and ocean circulation, in GCMs for future prediction”.
THIS WAS DONE. THE RESULTS ARE IN.
Some Thoughts on Global Climate Change: The Transition from Icehouse to Hothouse Conditions
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275277369_Some_Thoughts_on_Global_Climate_Change_The_Transition_for_Icehouse_to_Hothouse_Conditions
From book: Earth History: The Evolution of the Earth System (2016).
Rind’s “worst case” fears of 1998, turned out to be our “Climate Reality”.
Now, what happens if we dump enough CO2 into the atmosphere to raise the GMT by +4C?
At the North Pole temperatures go up about +20C. Shrinking the difference between the Equator and the NP from 45C to just 25C. Meaning that if is 77F at the Equator we would expect it to be about 32F at the North Pole.
This is what the “near term” future of the Arctic looks like. It’s a LOT hotter than the rest of the planet.
When Biden approved Willow, I researched and wrote an article, which in the process uncovered numerous, strangely available military reports and analysis.
https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/massive-alaska-willow-drilling-project
Perhaps most stunning is the Department of the Navy's knowledge of climate change and ramifications as early as 1990.
https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/weather/climatechange/globalclimatechange-navy.pdf
There was awareness of what we are witnessing at the top levels long ago. It's simply disgusting that other human beings, with their knowledge, have brought us to this.
Looks like you assigned me extra homework.
GREAT ARTICLE. Very interesting analysis and excellent links to sources. The military stuff is pure gold. As you said, I will reading it for "months".
You might like this as a companion piece to your article. I wrote it in 2022.
031 – If you suggest that the war in Ukraine is related to Climate Change, people tell you Putin doesn’t care about “Climate Change”. People are idiots.
https://richardcrim.substack.com/p/the-crisis-report-31
It has a section discussing Russia's Arctic coastline.
Russia in the Arctic — A Critical Examination
Russia is dominating the Arctic, but it’s not looking to fight over it
“Russia’s coastline accounts for 53% of Arctic Ocean coastline and the country’s population in the region totals roughly 2 million people.”
Russia’s Arctic coast loses 7,000 hectares annually due to climate changes.
A new study conducted at the Moscow State University confirms that the Arctic permafrost along the country’s northern coastline is thawing at terrifying speeds.
What an ice-free Arctic really means, and why it matters so much
Russia Flexes Its Regional Muscle As Arctic Ice Melts
Ice-free Arctic summers now very likely even with climate action
“Scientists surprised by latest results but say carbon cuts remain vital to prevent ice loss becoming permanent”
What is behind Russia’s interest in a warming Arctic?
“The last untapped area for shipping routes and exploitation is opening up and leading to new geopolitical tensions.”
I read 031. Thanks. It pretty much lines up with what I see. Ukraine isn't just a battle about NATO, it's about a country built on thawing permafrost. Russia has been battling that for decades, and now there is no staving it off by elevating buildings off the ground and using piers that cool the anchoring ground. Putin may be looking at Ukraine as not just "traditional" Russian territory, but a life raft. We'll never see that discussion in western media.
Should we allow people onto our life rafts? If they think that we won’t, how will they behave?