THE COMING GLACIAL AGE? CLIMATE WARMING PRECURSOR TO NEW ICE AGE!

As the Earth atmosphere warms the potential for a return to a glacial epoch increases. 

Climate activists are hyperbolically focused on the consequences of a warming Earth—“Climate Warming”. The Earth is indeed in a warming cycle, some of which is certainly due to human activities. But what is too often ignored is the possibility of the present well-documented warming cycle—precipitating a rapid cooling of the Earth which is just as real, and perhaps even more threatening to human life than a warmer—though livable planet.  

An early winter 2025 cold snap related to La Nina (ENSO) weather, exacerbated an unprecedented outbreak of very cold air into the Great Basin of Nevada and Utah. The dense frigid air in that enclosed basin led to an unusually severe and unseasonal outbreak of Sant’Anna winds which impacted wild-fire-prone southern California. In that state a seasonal drought, naturally tinder dry chaparral vegetation, steep slopes, coupled with human error and malfeasance resulted in unusually severe winter wild-fires in southern California. In Los Angeles County tens of thousands of acres were burned and thousands of homes and buildings destroyed, at least 25 people lost their lives.  

In the far south and Gulf states an historic winter storm brought record breaking low temperatures and unheard of blizzard warnings to the Gulf Coat and peninsula Florida. Snowfall records were shattered all through the Gulf Coast and Florida.  Florida had a record snowfall of almost 10 inches.  Even semi tropical New Orleans on the Gulf was blanketed with ten inches (10 in) of snow. Usually warm and humid Huston Texas had a record four inches of snow which turned the winter-gray city and its surroundings never-before seen winter-white. Other parts of Texas and Louisiana recorded six inches of snow. Most inhabitants never before experienced snow and persistent low temperatures, as a result, traffic accidents and exposure to cold and snow and the deep freeze that followed caused eleven deaths. 

So taking a cue from the climate warming activists, I am going to propose that these events—in my estimation part of totally natural perturbations of weather— could also be an early warning of climate change! But not the knee jerk “warming” claims made with every normal perturbation of long-term weather—that we face an existential threat of a warming climate, but, instead, an equally disturbing possibility of climate cooling!

There are valid claims that present warming trends and other climate and weather signals  are the precursors of a coming glacial age.  Yes, as noted below, glaciologists  support the concept that the Earth is at present in what is termed an interglacial period.   And indeed it may be tipped into a new glacial age as a result—not of cooling— but ironically—as a result of warming of the oceans and atmosphere.

So perhaps our fervid climate activists will have to abandon all their so far ineffective efforts directed at cooling down our atmosphere, by eliminating burning of fossil fuels, closing down pizza ovens, and turning off home gas ranges, and turn to beating drums to increase fossil fuel burning and increase deforestation etc. etc. to encourage a warming climate…and avoid a new glacial age.   Would that be ironic!

For those of us living in the recently glaciated Northeastern USA where the Ice Age began about 2.6 million years ago— and in its furthest extent two thousand foot thick continental glaciers covered our land. The ice began melting away in my area only about 17,000 years ago! 

In the northeast, evidences of this last glacial epoch are all around us. Here, where I write this today, from a home perched on the top of the Harbor Hill Moraine, a geologic feature of the last Pleistocene glacial epoch, here too giant granite erratic boulders carried south from Connecticut and Massachusetts by glacial ice are found scattered on many Long Island lawns and in wooded lots, where glacially deposited low hills create lineaments which meander across the countryside, where deep “kettle holes”, some filled with water, remind us that stranded ice blocks once filled these hollows which were then partly buried by glacial outwash, and the unusual pyramidal hills called kames, indicate where thousand foot thick masses of glacial ice stalled and  melted, the meltwaters poured down surface crevasses carrying gravel and sand down to accumulate under the ice and become one-hundred foot tall unusual now wooded conical hills. All these remind us that the ice left here only a short time ago in geologic terms.  In fact so short a time that glacial experts claim that our Earth is in an “interglacial stage” and that in all likelihood this planet is primed for a return of the ICE AGE.

Ice Ages like our present age occur when atmospheric circumstances permit snow to fall and accumulate rather than melt away seasonally. The accumulation of snow in great depths casuses pressure which compacts the fluffy stuff first into granules of ice then into solid masses of ice. 

For this accumulation process to occur, a concatenation of several geologic processes must reenforce each other as they act in unison. These processes often act as feedback loops in which one process results enhance another, such as when a cooling Earth produces more snow, and the persistent snow pack, reflects sunlight more effectively thus tending  to cool the Earth by reflecting solar radiation back into space causes cooling which causes more snow and more reflectivity enhancing the cooling process further.

Accumulating snow is compacted by the pressure of overlying snow layers and slowly turns into solid ice as the overload of snow layers increase. As snow depths increase, in the lower levels, the pressure of overlying snow compact to solid ice and the base of the ice under great pressure in contact with the ground can flow plastically, and melt and refreeze as it engulf loose rocks and flows slowly over irregular subsurfaces.  Solid ice can flow like a fluid when under great pressure. In this way the ice moves over the earth’s surface cooling the Earth further in another feedback loop as it expands over more surface area. During the last Pleistocene Era 2.6 mya to 12,000ya a great sheet of continental ice thousands of feet thick extended it cover over more than 1/3 of USA and more than half of North America.

But how does an Ice Age begin? There are several factors we know of that may contribute to global cooling and initiation of an Ice Age. Several hypotheses proposed as a mechanism for the initiation of a glacial epoch are related to not a cooling trend, but are initiated by a warming of the planet—as we are experiencing now.  

The sun itself may have periods of higher and lower radiation output.

Another is the fact that the Earth, wobbles as it rotates like a top does, as it spins on its axis. This wobbling effect (described by Milankovitch) can cause some parts of the Earth’s surface to get more or less solar radiation. In the Northern Hemisphere polar regions may experience cooling if the axis of rotation “tilts” away from the Sun and conversely experience warming if it “tilts” toward the Sun. 

Plate Tectonics is the geologic process whereby continents move over the Earth surface and may converge together (to form supercontinents—like Gondwana) then separate or break up in a cyclic pattern termed the Wilson Cycle which may take  @ 400-600 million years to complete.  

Gondwana last supercontinent was located close to the equator. It began to break apart about 180 mya. Over those thousands of millennia of break up, continents split away and drifted in various directions, some moved northward to occupy mid-latitude, high latitude and polar regions. 

Continents which migrated into high latitude and circumpolar locations began to accumulate snow and ice and as a result of  increasing reflection of solar radiation these cooler continents can cause global cooling and create circumstances amenable to glacial growth and expansion—as is the present case. The location of continental plates in polar regions is one reason why our present day Earth persists in a interglacial stage   

In the 1970s oceanographers began to understand that much of  global climate was controlled or affected by the circulation of the warm upper layers of ocean water (termed the thermohaline circulation). The discovery that warm surface ocean water flows north  in the Atlantic carrying massive amounts of heat to the northern hemisphere. (The Gulf Stream is an element of this overall marine circulation—a marine “river” of faster flowing warm water which flows within the slow moving thermohaline circulation).  

As this ocean water flows through the equatorial region it heats up and evaporation causes it to become more saline (salty) and thus more dense. As this now denser and higher salinity water approaches Iceland and Greenland in the North Atlantic, it releases  massive amounts of heat it stored from the equator, warming these northern regions. In this region as this more saline water cools (by giving up heat) it become more dense than the underlying water, and, as a result, it sinks to great depths to initiate the giant aqueous marine convection cycle of the Atlantic in which cold deep water moves south along the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean bed toward the Southern Hemisphere where upwelling occurs and this mass of surface water moves slowly north on the surface. The themohaline circulation at present operates to keep the northern hemisphere warmer than it would be were the circulation to be stopped.

In 1968, Peter Weyl at  SUNY Stony Brook proposed that climate warming, particularly in the northern hemisphere could melt enough glacial ice on Greenland where the meltwaters flow directly into the North Atlantic to dilute the salty water, make it less salty (less dense) so it would not sink. If the theremohaline water did not sink it would disrupt and end the entire circulation and would cause an abrupt cooling process. This would stop the thermohaline circulation and turn off the heat flow to the Northern Hemisphere, thus initiating a rapid cooling period in which—I suggest here that glacial ice may build up again and initiate a glacial epoch.  

Then too the sun itself may produce more or less solar radiation to alter global temperatures. 

Periods of active volcanic eruptions may produce high concentrations of dust, ash, and aerosols released into the atmosphere these interact with solar radiation reaching the Earth. This would cool the Earth and perhaps interact with other cooling phenomena to precipitate a cold cycle.

Interestingly too, is the fact that the position of the drifting continents can alter the way warm ocean currents move and distribute heat. 

Then too there is the percentage of Earth warming gases in the Earth’s lower atmosphere. More carbon dioxide tends to absorb earth radiation and warm the Earth while lower levels of this gas cause cooling.

TRUMP’S FIRST DAY EXECUTIVE ORDERS

 WHAT HAS PRESIDENT TRUMP 47 ACCOMPLISHED ON FIRST DAY?

(See: “What executive orders has Trump signed…”? BBC, 1-20-25, by C.Hayes and P Mccausland) 

Immigration

Proclaimed national emergency to rebuild the border wall, “seal the border”, “end birthright citizenship”, designated drug cartels and “South American gangs (MS13)” as “foreign terrorist organizations”, reimplemented “remain in Mexico policy’, endED “catch and release”, ended Biden immigration “fly in-pipeline” from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, imposed “death penalty” for any captial crime committed by illegals, ended the Biden “refugee settlement program”.

Climate and Energy

Proclaimed end of “Green New Deal”- no “electric car mandates”, opted out of Paris Climate agreement, proclaimed “national energy emergency” and drill baby drill directive to fill up oil reserves, and opened up Alaska’s oil fields for development.

 Health

Withdraws from WHO world health organization. 

Diversity Equity and Inculsion (DEI) 

Proclaims only two sexes “male and female”, ends all federal support for transgender policies affecting prisons, military, and passports and visas, ends any governmental support of “gender ideology”, closes down all “radical and wasteful” federal DEI programs. Promises to extend these rules to private sector.

Capitol Demonstration/Riot

President Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of 1600 demonstrators who were arrested at the Capital Riot on Jan 6, 2021. He commuted prison sentences of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Government Reforms

Creates the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to advise on cutting government waste and costs.  Freezes federal hirings, proclaims all federal workers must return to work in office, restores “freedom of speech” and ends government censorship, ends weaponization of government against political enemies.

Foreign Policy

Temporarily ends all foreign aid outlays, reviews all foreign assistance programs, reinstates Cuba to “sponsor of terror” list, reinstates sanctions against Venezuela, ends all “new” regulations from any federal agency until Trump administration is in full power, revokes “vaccination mandate” and reinstates with full backpay 8,000 military members who were discharged for failure to vaccinate.

Economy

Directs all federal agencies to address ‘cost of living issues”, and to seek ways to lower costs of food, housing and fuel.

Name Changes

Directs Secretary of Interior to rename Gulf of Mexico..”Gulf of America”, reinstate name of Mount McKinley which was renamed Mount Denali, by Pres. Obama.  

LOS ANGELES WILDFIRES 2025 , MORE THAN CLIMATE CHANGE

 

LOS ANGELES 2025, MOTHER OF ALL WILD FIRES

A fire prone region, a drought, La Nina winter weather,, a cold air outbreak, a teenager’s New Years Eve “pot party” in the woods, illegal fireworks, a small fire erupts, duly snuffed out by the LA FD, and a week later, fierce 90 mph Sant’Anna winds reignite the undetected cinders. These events all horribly compounded and extended by WOKE DEI ideology, misplaced priorities, one party rule, local political hubris, human frailty, poor planning, incompetent and missing bureaucrats and human stupidity. 

The Los Angeles Pacific Palisades fire, has become the penultimate (we hope) disaster of the Biden, disaster-plagued administration. This terrible ecologic and human tragedy  is a result of governmental failure resulting from misplaced priorities, one party rule, self righteousness, and stupidity coupled with predictable natural weather, geography and native floristic phenomena which culminated in  a cataclysmic firestorm without historic precedent. 

The apocalyptic conflagrations in Los Angeles appears to have started in the Pacific Palisades section of that city on January 7, 2025.  An extensive investigation by the WAPO newspaper appears to indite the activities of a New Year’s Eve teenage “pot party” in the bone dry woods of the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles, where fireworks may have ignited La Nina weather dry forest litter. That fire was reported and duly responded to by the LA FD. They reported an area of about 3-8acres in flames. They effectively contained and extinguished that small fire on Jan 1, 2025. 

A week later, as a result of winter La Nina weather patterns, i.e. a cold dry outbreak of air which settled into the Great Basin and generated an unseasonably powerful Sant’Anna wind.  The high winds impacted the region on January 7, 2025 causing the week-earlier Palisades New Year’s Eve fire-site to reignite.  

Reigniting is a serious problem in very windy locations. (Fires can smolder under soil litter, dead leaves, or in soil  humus layer (organic rich top layer of soil), and in dry punky wood for weeks). The LA FD does not maintain patrols on past fire sites.  But a week later, the winds were so severe (60-90 mph) smoldering cinders came to life, flames sprouted and  fire spread so rapidly that containment with the available man power and mechanical assets were fruitless and the Pacific Palisades fire spread rapidly. 

The result: Los Angeles’ strikingly intense, wild fires burned 40,000 acres to cinders, 12,000 frame structures were totally consumed by extremely hot fires leaving only twisted metal, concrete and brick structures cracked and collapsed where homes, churches, stores formerly stood, 150,000 people were evacuated, and sadly 25 people lost their lives in the conflagration.   

Wells Fargo estimated damages and economic loss at about or as much as$130 billion or as little as $60 billion.

Three fires have plagued the City since January 7, 2025. The first and largest is the Pacific Palisades fire on the west end of the LA County. Fifteen miles to the NE is the Eaton Fire. Then to northwest near Pasadena is the smaller Hurst Fire north of San Fernando which has consumed 14000 acres and burned 7,000 structures.

But what makes the forested and natural regions of southern California, so “fire prone”.  

The climate of Los Angeles and Southern California characterized by hot dry summers and mild wet winters is classed  as “Mediterranean”.  (Though during La Nina weather, winters in thjs region are colder and dry.)  The natural vegetation adapted to the Mediterranean climate is known as “chaparral” a  biome comprised of plants adapted to dry, hot weather and low-moisture soils. “Chaparral vegetation is characterized by low growing shrubs with leathery, drought-resistant waxy leaves that often form near-impenetrable thickets.” 

The common plants of California chaparral are manzanita, acacia, juniper, and shrub-live-oaks.  Juniper and oaks are well known and occur widely, but manzanita and acacia occur more commonly in the west and Mexico. Manzanita is an evergreen bush-or low tree of the Heath Family with small red edible fruit with twisted red-barked branches. The bark readily peels away to form loose red strips and burns easily.  “Manzanita” in Spanish means “little apple”.  Acacia is a low growing shrub or small tree with compound leaves and is a member of the pea (Fabacea) family. It has  bean-like fruits which are edible and it branches are well supplied with thorns. 

The chaparral species form low dense thickets often associated with other species with similar adaptations to heat, drought and low soil moisture. This pattern of growth in low growing closely spaced thickets is itself an adaptation to a climate in which the conservation of plant and soil moisture is critical to survival.

These drought adaptations, however, also make this biome highly susceptible to  wild fires. In fact archeological studies and historic accounts indicate that wild fires were common occurrences in the distant past prior to historic human occupation. 

In addition to their waxy leaves and often dry peeling bark  chaparral’s growth pattern, close to the ground in dense thickets, increase susceptibility to wild fires. Such chaparral thickets flare up in towering flames in seconds as violent hot winds carrying flying embers descends, ignites finely divided fuels like waxy leaves and fine branches which explode into towering flames which generate heated air that rises carrying more embers burning leaves and branches which then carry the fire to a new area. 

When chaparral achieves ignition temperature—their finely divided character (leaves, thin branches and fine twigs) with  increased surface area in contact with air in the thicket can ignite, instantly  combining the tinder like fuel with the surrounding oxygen in the air to almost instantly oxidize the mass of wood and leaves into heat and gases to generate an almost explosive flaming inferno. See examples of “dust explosions”.  Chaparral fires are intensely hot. The heat generated can ignite other surfaces and materials near by, structures, homes  automobiles, which then add to the exponentially increasing conflagration.

For this reason, so called “controlled burns” to reduce fuel levels may not be practical in chaparral biome dominated areas.  Though in more typical forests at higher elevations where controlled ground fires can safely burn downed tree limbs and understory vegetation, such policies can help reduce incidence of very hot fires. 

What about the strong winds? The dry air? The Sant’Anna Winds?

These wild fire-generating meteorological phenomena are related to weather, climate and geography.

Los Angeles is located on the west coast,  parts of  which are at or near sea level. But as one travels east, the topography becomes mountainous  rising over a series of roughly north south mountain ranges such as  the Coast Ranges, Panamint Range and a southern extension of the Sierra Nevada. (While the San Gabriel Mts are part of the “transverse range” which trend east west). 

Continuing east over these coastal ranges and the higher Sierra Nevada one enters into a physigraphic province known as the Great Basin (GB), the base of which has an average elevation of about 4000 feet above sea level. The GB is surrounded by other high mountain ranges (it is an actual enclosed “basin”). 

The only outlet for cold air trapped in the GB is in the southwest, where air can descend from its 4000 foot base level, flow through and over the Costal Ranges and into the Los Angeles physiographic basin. 

Since the flowing air is forced to channel through narrow valleys surrounding Los Angeles where, (based on the Bernoulli  principle,) aid flow compressed into a narrow channel speeds up and can reach hurricane force levels (74 mph) and higher (some have been reported at 90 mph)

In January* winter weather patterns often carry very cold masses of dry air into the Great Basin. Typical January average low temperatures hover around 15F, with daily highs at about 39F. These cold air masses are also low in Relative Humidity which is a measure of how close air is to saturation of water vapor.  RH in January varies but thpical cold dry air has RH values often at around 66% . 

*It is notable that weather of January2025 was affected by la Nina “weather” which tends to bring colder drier weather outbreaks to the Great Basin in Nevada. 

In this process of air flowing from higher regions to lower levels air is compressed by the increase in overlying layers. Compression causes air to heat up according to standard gas laws (PV=nRT).  (Recall how a bicycle pump heats up as one pumps (compresses) air into a bicycle tire.) As a result, for each 1000 foot descent, air heats up by about 3.5deg F.  Significantly, as air heats up its RH (humidity) decreases. Thus, GB air which starts out as a cold low humidity air mass to begin with, dries out significantly as it passes over interceding mountain ranges then descends into the LA basin. 

A mass of cold GB air descending into the Los Angeles Basin would have passed over several mountain ranges, losing moisture and heating as it descends.  Air at a 39F day-time GB temperature, descending from 4000 feet to sea level, would heat up by (3.5x4= 14F) 14 F degrees, arriving at the LA Basin 14 degrees warmer or  (39F+14F =53F) at 53 F but its RH of 66% would have been drastically reduced . 

On its passage this now warmer dry air is forced to flow through narrow steep sided east west valleys and canyons where wind speeds increase (Bernoulli Effect) at times to hurricane force levels.  

All that is needed under these circumstances is a spark from a toppled power-line, a careless smoker tossing a lit cigarette butt, or a still smoldering  week old fire, the result of inebriated teenager’s “year-end” celebrations coaxed back to life by powerful winds!

It’s notable that on January 22, 2025, a second outbreak of powerful Sant’Anna winds helped spread Hughes Fire burning near Castaic Lake  north of Santa Clarita which started as a five acre blaze which expanded to 5,000 acres in only a little more than two hours.

 

ON 2024 IS IT THE HOTTEST YEAR?— COPERNICUS, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND WHAT WE KNOW WE KNOW

The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) is hyperventilating about its claim that 2024 is the first full year to exceed the1.5C above pre-industrial (1855) temperature level. 

The C3S adds that 2024 is confirmed to be the warmest year on record globally, and 2024 is the first calendar year that the average global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above the 1850 pre-industrial level. (See Copernicus Service Climate change Service, Jan 10, 2024 downloaded 1/1024).

Both of those statements proved to be incorrect (typical climate hyperbole) but the chattering, climate addicted media did no checking and only added to the hyperbole. 

The Guardian’s Oliver Millman added: “2024 Was The Hottest Year On Record …US Scientists Confirm” by Oliver Millman, 1/10/24. “Climate crisis is pushing humanity into temperatures we have never previously experienced.”

My first complaint is the hypocrisy of using poor Nicholas Copernicus, (1473-1543) one of the early fathers of modern science as the “sponsor” of the less than scientific “climate service”. 

Copernicus a 15^thcentury Polish polymath and astronomer most likely would have objected to the use of his name to give credence to an organization which tends toward religion rather than objective unbiased science. It was Copernicus who proposed the revolutionary heliocentric model for the solar system—a theory anathema to religious dogma and ideologues of that time, who — insisted that only an Earth centric system —which God created—could be considered. All other theories could not be considered, evaluated or even discussed. 

Much like modern day climate-change dogmatists, adherents of the geocentric system of the 15th century preferred authors and reports which used observations to support their theories, and ignored those that did not. They preferred to posit a theory and garner facts to support their theory, rather than make observations using inductive reasoning to gather observations from which to develop a working hypothesis …like Copernicus.

Copernicus was a free thinker first…and famously stated (in a here a shortened form). “True knowledge is the result of an evaluation of what we know we know, and what we know we don’t know.” If only the EU, C3S would actually incorporate Copernicus’ directive on knowledge into their calculations..what they think they know may more closely approximate Copernicus’ ideas of true knowledge.  

Copernicus, a true scientist who put his own carefully recorded observations before commonly accepted theories and religious dogma, suffered in silence and kept his major life’s work unpublished, rather than face opprobrium and personal attack, well aware that his observations, analysis and valid conclusions were not “acceptable” to the dogmatists of his day. 

His major opus (De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, or “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies”) published in 1543 would make Copernicus immediately famous. De Revolutionibus was long completed, though Copernicus fearful of the outcry and personal attacks, only permitted it to be published from his deathbed. A great scientist and thinker, he was not a battling heroic figure of science…perhaps unlike Darwin who stoically faced his detractors. 

But what about the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the statements of what they think they know? They think they know that the Earth temperature is static, that 1850 was somehow a stable temperature period from which they could evaluate our more recent temperatures. 

The idea of a static Earth is like the idea of an earth-centric solar system…the facts and observations do not match with the dogma that is preferred by the climate ideologues. 

The fact is that Earth is a living planet with a molten interior which generates massive amounts of heat and outpourings of molten magma, charged often with volcanic gases.  Earth’s surface has islands and continents of lighter rocks floating upon a surface of dense dark rocks which underlay the continents and comprise the surface of the ocean basins. The continents slide over the denser rock surface and collide, separate and recombine in a long period cyclic pattern. Thus the Earth’s atmosphere and its temperature is a result of the interaction of the rocky Earth, interior Earth and the organisms living on the surface—the biosphere. These forces are in constant flu and dynamic change—-the opposite of static or stable temperatures like the 1850-59 period which the C3S and others would like which to think as the point at which the Earth should be and remain. 

So it takes some mental un-Copernian mental contortions to claim that 1850 should be some basis point from which we must decide how warm or cool our planet should be. But that is what the C3S think what they know.

Sadly, when an hypothesis begins to have the acceptance level of religious doctrine, as has the climate change “religion”, enormous peer and economic pressures are placed on researchers to confirm the doctrine (theory or hypothesis) with supporting data and submerge or ignore data that does not support the accepted theory. The economic social and academic advancement pressures too often result in heightened levels of what is often euphemistically termed “confirmation bias”.  

But what about past Earth temperatures on our constantly changing, colliding continents, mountain building, belching out of gas, with growth and demise of forests and other organism which altered the mixture atmospheric gases of the physical Earth?  

As a result, Earth temperatures have varied enormously over the planet’s long history, largely due to the levels of vulcanism and related amounts of CO2  in the atmosphere.  (Vulcanic out gassing generates mostly CO2 and H2O with minor amounts of other gases such as sulfides)  Outgassing has generated gases which have interacted with the oceans, lithosphere and atmosphere over Earth’s long history.  

The glacial epochs are an example.  Where I sit and write this today, in a home on the top of an 150 foot high Pleistocene glacial moraine which was, 17,000 years ago, covered by more than 1,000 feet of glacial ice.  That massive ice sheet which left behind automobile-sized boulders on the property has since melted back to Greenland, due to the Earth’s generalized warming trend of the last 20 millennia.  

So rather than being static, Earth’s temperature's have always flucuated. Earth’s warmest and more recent periods occurred during the Cretaceous (Age of Dinosaurs) 145-66MYA when a great deal of vulcanism, and sea floor spreading generated large amounts of CO2, a greenhouse gas. This caused extensive global warming.  As a result, Earth temperatures rose in Cretaceous times to its  highest level during the entire Phanerozoic Era (an era which spanned @ 500My).  

During the Cretaceous Period average surface land temperatures in the tropics were about 35C (95F). During this period  the tropical Atlantic Ocean surface water temperatures reached about 29C (84F). No glacial ice sheets existed in the Arctic or Antarctic, and sea level was much higher than today. 

Temperature change, a direct result of the Earth’s dynamic nature is the natural state of the Earth. It has been warmer and cooler many times…..but never has remained static or stable over any considerable length of time. 

Relatively recent studies of long ice cores (@ 2 miles long) taken in the glacial ice of central Greenland called temperature “proxies” have permitted scientists to reconstruct changes in temperatures using ratios of Oxygen isotopes ( O2 gas occurs in a light form O16, and a heavy form O18). Meteorologists have established that the lighter isotope  (O16) occurs at a higher level in cold air. Making controlled tests and relating this back to laboratory experiments can generate actual temperature estimates taken from the ratio of oxygen in measured sections of the ice cores. These data can be relatable as proxies for global temperatures for the last 10 thousand years. (See Jason Box et.al, Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Air Temperature Variability 1840-2007, J.Climate, 22, pp 4029-4049. And Carbon Brief, carbonbrief.org, author, Zeke Hausfather, 3/5/2019,)

The Jason Box Ice core data and Carbon Brief, data indicate temperature of Greenland ice core data which may be used as proxies to make the following estimates of global temperatures. These data are imperfect as an estimate of actual temperatures but can be used to indicate generalized trends. If Greenland was much warmer than today we can assume that North America was also warmer—by how much is less definite: 

 

8000 years ago global temperatures (as recorded in Greenland Ice cores) was 3.2C warmer than that of the 1850-59 preindustrial level climate activists have established as a base line.  Eight millennia ago there were no major anthropogenic additions of CO2, people were burning dried cow dung and sparse wood for fuel. At that time, 8000 BP the Neolithic Revolution was occurring in the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia in Middle East. The last of the megafauna of Ice Age die off. Glaciers melt, sea level rises.  Early humans began making more refined stone tools, which were specialized for one purpose than being multipurpose in the Paleolithic. They were also domesticating crops and animals. Small settlements began to develop into the first cities. 

5200 years ago global temperatures in Greenland were warmer than today and well higher than the 1850-59 “preindustrial level” The Stone Age ends when humans in Near East began making tools of bronze. In Egypt writing is developed and history is recorded. In North America indigenous peoples around Great Lakes discover native copper and use it to fashion jewelry, knives, and pendants. 

Skipping a good deal of time…

1900 CE global temperatures were just as they are today @1.5C warmer than the 1850 59 preindustrial level, coal and oil were in use as fuels but not as much as we use today yet global temperatures were at the same level. 

1940 CE. global temperatures were are @ 2.0 C warmer than the 1850 59 preindustrial level, yet the level of coal and oil consumption was at a small fraction of modern use. These results should be investigated further. 

So what do we know we know…First we know that the Earth’s temperature fluctuations are the natural state. WE know that for the last 20 thousand years we have been in an Earth warming period and the glaciers all around the world are retreating not because of human intervention—they were retreating long before humans trod the land.  We know that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will increase global warming. We know we don't know whether the Earth temperature trends warmer or cooler…a new glacial era is very possible. We know we know that the year 2024 was probably not the hottest in human history. We know that the 1900s probably had similar temperatures as today.  The 1940s was decidedly hotter (but with much less hyperbole about climate change and fewer temp recordings).  And 8000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent the temperatures were more than twice the so called preindustrial level. So the hyperbole of the  c3s and the media is just that hyperbole…

Finally as the history of the Earth idncates the Earth will get cooler or warmer…we can not tell. We can be sure our feeble attempts at climate control will not change very much. We should not turn to rubbing dry sticks together to keep warm..we are best served by ending the precipitous acts of those who think that we are faced with an existential threat…yes the world is getting warmer, and our excesses have increased that warming trend—but we did not precipitate the warming trend that has been going on for the last 20 millennia—we only started burning coal and oil in excess only a century ago. 

However..there is no harm in moderating our own impact on the atmosphere…We can reduce greenhouse gas emission without crippling our economy. We can modulate temperatures and reduce fossil fuel consumption, we can protect all forests whch act as sinks for carbon, we can plant more trees, we can cut down less forests, we can be better wiser more humane conservators of our fabulous earth and its magnificent diverse lithosphere oceans and biosphere. We can protect all of our lonely blue planet in the black void or space —most likely the only one in our galaxy. it’s unique in the near universe—perhaps the entire universe-like you.