Published: July 21, 2023 8.28am EDT in The Conversation
How I imagined life was like the last it was this warm, with the help of AI
Author Darrell Kaufman, Paleoclimate Scientist, receives funding from the US National Science Foundation.
As scorching heat grips large swaths of the Earth, a lot of people are trying to put the extreme temperatures into context and asking: When was it ever this hot before?
Globally, 2023 has seen some of the hottest days in modern measurements, but what about farther back, before weather stations and satellites?
Some news outlets have reported that daily temperatures hit a 100,000-year high.
As a paleoclimate scientist who studies temperatures of the past, I see where this claim comes from, but I cringe at the inexact headlines. While this claim may well be correct, there are no detailed temperature records extending back 100,000 years, so we don’t know for sure.
Here’s what we can confidently say about when Earth was last this hot.
This is a new climate state
Scientists concluded a few years ago that Earth had entered a new climate state not seen in more than 100,000 years. As fellow climate scientist Nick McKay and I recently discussed in a scientific journal article, that conclusion was part of a climate assessment report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2021.
Earth was already more than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) warmer than preindustrial times, and the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were high enough to assure temperatures would stay elevated for a long time.
Earth’s average temperature has exceeded 1 degree Celsius (1.8 F) above the preindustrial baseline. This new climate state will very likely persist for centuries as the warmest period in more than 100,000 years. The chart shows different reconstructions of temperature over time, with measured temperatures since 1850 and a projection to 2300 based on an intermediate emissions scenario. D.S. Kaufman and N.P. McKay, 2022, and published datasets, Author provided
Even under the most optimistic scenarios of the future – in which humans stop burning fossil fuels and reduce other greenhouse gas emissions – average global temperature will very likely remain at least 1 C above preindustrial temperatures, and possibly much higher, for multiple centuries.
This new climate state, characterized by a multi-century global warming level of 1 C and higher, can be reliably compared with temperature reconstructions from the very distant past. (To continue reading go to Page 2 below)
Cheap ink was made by mixing burnt sheep’s wool with water. But high quality Sumi ink is used for calligraphy.
Sumi is made from the soot of pine branches selected from trees in the beautiful groves on the mountainsides close to Nara and Suzuka. These two regions of Japan are prized for the highest quality ink. In harmony with the environment, Master Sumi Ink artisans create ink from the purest, natural materials
I was once fortunate enough, over dinner, to sit next to Dr. Pippa Milgram’s father, who had been an White House advisor to multiple Presidents. On that basis, I have been following his equally talented daughter. Her pedigree has given her access to many in-the-know. Just over a year ago, she drew my attention to the UAP (UFO) inquiries bubbling up; which have since burst into the public’s eye, during a bi-partisan House oversight Committee hearing this week. This is what she had to say on the subject on June 6th.
This is a roll out of information and disclosure. Word is that many other current and former US officials are lined up to roll out similar disclosures. The speed and depth will be influenced by the public reaction. If there’s only skepticism or ambivalence, it can easily proceed. If people have fear, things may slow. How will you, your family, your community, your country react?
Which way do you lean?
Awe and wonder or fear and ridicule? Leave a comment.
Almost a year ago, I wrote a column here on Anomalous Phenomena, a subject I had never expected to write about. But, many of my contacts from my days in the White House and the policy world kept nudging me to look into the dramatic policy changes that have been underway over the last few years. Sure enough, something remarkable has been happening. Congress has taken many steps to codify the new stance in law. This is pretty much the only subject where we find a truly bipartisan agreement. That alone makes this subject interesting. This new policy and legal environment is now yielding practical results.
To recap, under Senator Gillibrand’s leadership, Congress has now compelled the Pentagon, the Intelligence Agencies, and other parts of government to share what they have on anomalous phenomena with each other and ultimately with the public. The Director for National Intelligence, Avril Haines, has clearly agreed with Senator Gillibrand on the need to get the information out of secret programs and various government silos. The new legislation has specifically required the government to report on all anomalous phenomena that are not “man-made.” It has given whistleblower protection so senior officials can testify to Congress and even go public without risking jail for breaking their non-disclosure agreements. Investigative committees have now been established at The Pentagon, NASA, and among the intelligence agencies.
Yesterday, it was revealed that a very senior and highly regarded US military official named David Grusch recently invoked the new amnesty provisions of the law and testified directly to Congress. He announced that multiple US Government entities have been withholding the precise information that Congress now demands from them. More specifically, he said, these secret and concealed “legacy programs” within “multiple agencies” have been “nesting UAP activities in conventional secret access programs without appropriate reporting to various oversight authorities.” The most challenging comment was this: “publicly unknown Cold War for recovered and exploited physical material – a competition with near-peer adversaries over the years to identify UAP crashes/landings and retrieve the material for exploitation/reverse engineering to garner asymmetric national defense advantages.” Note that his lawyer is Charles McCullough III, the original former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community appointed by President Obama. Grusch worked at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office and on over 2000 secret UAP programs.
This aligns with what I have learned from speaking to officials involved with these programs for many decades. Over time we will hear that such “physical material” and “craft” have also been retrieved from space. The Grusch story is the first of many planned disclosure interviews that have already been prepared. The US Government requested that certain former government officials prepare formal disclosure interviews at their request. So, this is not about people opposing the authorities. It is about former and current officials working with the authorities. The decision to go public has been made, and now there is no going back.
This begs the question, why now? My theories are (and these are just theories): click on the 2 below to get to the next page…
Kyle Bass has been a long-time China hawk. in this lecture he reveals some very disturbing trends in China’s plans to recover Taiwan. It is going to be hard to deter this determined emperor. He has became a one-man-show, with no dissenting voices to council him. This is a very dangerous situation and one that I’m not sure diplomacy can resolve.
Just as our oil blockade forced Japan to desperately attach Pearl Harbor, we declared war on China with our October 17th microchip ban. I doubt the current American public’s willingness to run a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, like we did during the Russian blockade of Berlin during the Cold War.
Such an humiliating defeat would further embolden the Coalition of autocrats and become the beginning of the end of the dollar as the world’s Reserve currency and the substantial benefits that confers on us.
Zhou between Kissinger and Mao
When Premier Zhou Enlai was asked by Henry Kissinger what he thought of the French Revolution, he calmly replied “We’ll have to see”. Except for brief periods in history, autocracies (kings, emperors, dictators) have ruled our world. The Chinese take the Long View that this current aberration of History, with concern for freedom and human rights, will eventually revert to the mean again. And they will be here to push us back to those prevalent dark times.
Kyle’s presentation includes 3 sections:
1. Military force readiness & preparation
2. Changes to the legal system & infrastructure
3. Financial market movements & wartime planning
Here is his opening statement…
Take the time to watch the rest of this sobering assessment with the link below.
While it hasn’t made the news, they are letting this fire go ahead and burn.
My grandson works at the Park and sent this picture this morning.
The Sacarmento bee reports
The Pika Fire, started by lightning on June 29, had burned 50 acres near North Dome as of Thursday, July 13, the National Park Service said. Yosemite National Park is warning of smoky conditions. Early Friday, July 14, the Air Quality Index at Yosemite Village exceeded 300, considered hazardous, because of high levels of particulate matter.
At least when Buzzfeed asked AI to come up with what Europeans imagined what people from each State in America to look like. The images were created in Midjourney the best text to image AI out there so far. The result wasn’t pretty.
Tiger Woods speaking at Lincoln Memorial on Obama’s inauguration
While only 14 years old, tiger Woods understands his place in the world and what he plans to accomplish. We now know that many consider him the greatest golfer of all time. Who would have known from this interview?
