Wednesday 31 May 2017

Arctic sea ice - 05/30/2017

Thanks to Harold Hensell


The Beaufort Sea is breaking up


The Beaufort Sea and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. 05/30/2017 The Beaufort Sea Ice is breaking up. A large crack has developed from the Beaufort Sea to the Lincoln Sea. When the Arctic Ice is no longer attached to the shoreline, it technically becomes a large disintegrating iceberg. Then it is free to move and its motion is generally counterclockwise.

When it comes to the Arctic figures on sea ice extent do not really give the true picture. We end to look at volume or thickness. See how little old ice remains.

In the case of Antarctica we do not know what the thickness of the ice is because it has never been measured. Antarctic research does not have a Peter Wadhams


Northern hemisphere sea ice thickness on 24 May 2017 according to the Arctic Cap Nowcast/Forecast System (ACNFS), US Naval Research Laboratory. The details of this modelling approach are described here. Ice thickness scale (m) is shown to the right


Arctic sea ice - 05/30/2017

Daily volume: 17,944 km³ (*record* low for the date) Δ –436/day
–2041/week, –3710/month, –1031/year, –878/5year (–4.7%)
Daily extent: 11,283,701 km² (6th lowest for the date) Δ –65k/day
–377k/week, –1391k/month, +803k/year, –231k/5year (–2%)

2017 volume maximum 22,255 km³ on May 12th (*lowest*)
2017 extent maximum 13,878,287 km² on March 6th (*lowest*)
2017 extent minimum¹ 11,283,701 km² on May 30th
¹Preliminary max/min

Source: JAXA / Wipneus for May 30th 2017.



In the comments people have been calculating when we MIGHT see a total ice melt

Comments from Torsten Vidal

CORRECTION:

17,944 km³ losing 2041/week ~18 losing 2/week = 9 weeks from now. That's one week into August in my book. (Daily losses of course suggest even earlier in the summer.)

Using the last couple of days for average, we get this math puzzle:


17,944 km³ – 515/day = 17944/515 = 35 days. I.e. July 4th @ Zero km³.


This is sea ice extent for Antactica. It's anyone's guess what the thickness is


Extreme weather report - 05/30/2017

Climate & Extreme Weather News #28 (May 27th to May 30th 2017)


Germany banned for visits to Incirlik airbase

Turkey wants ‘positive steps’ from Germany to allow visits to Incirlik base



German lawmakers have been denied permission to visit their own troops, stationed at the Incirlik air base in Turkey.


READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/8d3w

Fertile ground for terrorism in destruction of Libya

Gaddafi chased MI6-backed rebels straight to Manchester




Multiple warring tribes and civil strife in the wake of NATO-backed regime change in Libya provided fertile ground for the likes of the Manchester bomber to imbibe their poisonous ideology and wreak havoc on the West. In fact, the killer and his father were both involved in an MI6-backed rebel army. RT America’s Manila Chan reports.

New ISIS tactics


Islamic State encourages followers to target and attack buy and sell websites users
Lindt cafe gunman Man Haron Monis, pictured in 2010 - four years before the siege, was praised by the Islamic State ...
KATE GERAGHTY/SYDNEY MORNING HERALD,
31 May, 2017

The latest issue of the extremist group's English language propaganda magazine Rumiyah suggests several ways IS followers can take as many people as possible hostage and slaughter them.

It suggests posting fake ads for items for sale on auction websites to trick people into meeting them at a certain location so they can pay and collect the items, which IS suggests should be large and/or expensive.
The magazine encourages IS followers to post fake adverts of items to lure out victims and meet in person.
123RF.COM
The magazine encourages IS followers to post fake adverts of items to lure out victims and meet in person.
"Online sales by way of buy and sell websites such as Craigslist, Gumtree, eBay, the Loot, and others are an alternative means to luring one's victims," an article titled Just Terror Tactics suggests.

"The viewing and collecting of the item should be arranged to be at the location where one seeks to carry out his operation. Upon the target's arrival, one can then proceed to initiate his attack."
Gumtree is urging users of its online classifieds to report anything suspicious.
"The safety of our community is our main priority and we urge anyone who thinks they've come across anything suspicious or concerning to report it to us," a spokesman said in a statement to AAP.
"We encourage all users to visit our Help section for tips on how to have a safe and successful experience and to be vigilant when using any online marketplace."
The article also suggests using online ads for fake jobs or properties for rent as another way to lure people and details how to subdue and restrain them before killing them.
Australian terrorists including Lindt Cafe gunman Man Haron Monis, Victorian police killer Numan Haider, and radicalised teen Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar along with a string of others who have committed atrocities in France and Britain and the United States are all praised in the article for setting "heroic examples".
Supporters of the extremist jihadist group are urged to take as many hostages as possible in busy, enclosed locations such as nightclubs, cinemas and shopping malls before killing them as quickly as possible, rather than holding them for ransom.
The article explains that it can be "very simple" to obtain guns to use in their attacks and suggests raiding gun shops in order to steal weapons and ammunition.
"This method is applicable in most western countries such as the US, Europe, the UK, Canada, Australia, and anywhere else the Crusaders and mushrikin can be found," the article says.
IS supporters are urged to exploit days when police and security forces are pre-occupied with major events to carry out their attacks.
"After killing those present one should keep a few of his victims alive as hostages to be used as human shields against the anticipated response of the kafir armed forces," the article says.




Promoting suicide bombers in Syria

When did you ever see any western material giving coverage to the real anti-terrorist forces in Syria or elsewhere?

Western documentaries promoting suicide bombers


Popcorn time!
Danish television tonight 'documentary' promoting suicide bombers in Syria. Amazing shit, I'm sure ??

Du må ikke græde – for så mister du blod – Reportager fra borgerkrigen i Syrien



Here is another



DUGMA: The Button

Feature - 58 min
An intimate portrait of a group of suicide bombers in Syria


An intimate portrait of four very different suicide bombers working for Al Nusra in Syria. From the Saudi who loves singing and fried chicken to the 26-year- old British convert who is worried about his new wife, this remarkable film embeds with an unlikely bunch of ‘martyrdom seekers’. As each waits for their turn to go on a final mission, known by jihadists as 'Dugma', this film lays bare the faith and doubt at the core of men who give their life for their cause

United States now openly pro-terrorist

UNITED STATES NOW OPENLY PRO-TERRORIST REBRANDS ALQAEDA; BRITISH/U.S. SUPPORTED TERRORISTS CRUSHED IN ALEPPO AND HOMS; 2000 ISIS RATS KILLED IN ALEPPO; WESTERN MEDIA SILENT ABOUT THEIR DEFEAT IN SYRIA AFTER YEARS OF SUPPORTING TERRORISTS


My readers should read Vanessa’s article below, in the “News and Comment” section, about how the U.S. engineered the rebranding of Alqaeda and then, managed to remove the terrorist jihadist cannibals from the list of groups which practice terrorism. It is unbelievable that a country could be so obsessed with a goal such that the means to get there could violate all the core principles which made that same country great. Whew!



HOMS:  Canthama wrote a lot about this in yesterday’s post.  It is true, the Syrian Army has swiped away large concentrations of ISIS and U.S.-controlled sociopaths from vast areas of the Eastern Syrian Desert, freeing critically important natural resources and denying ISIS any further involvement in producing fuel for trade with Turkey.

At Khunayfis, all phosphate mines have been cleared of terrorists.  The net result is the liberation of close to 5,000 square kilometers of land.  At Al-‘Ilyaaniyya, which was liberated from the Fake Syrian Army (FSA), south of Khunayfis, the SAA has begun radiating out toward Al-Sukhna which remains under ISIS control.  Al-Sukhna is a key jumping-off point for the Syrian Army if it chooses to encircle Al-Raqqa City.

Also liberated was the Abtar Mountains and the Al-Sawwaana mines.  Throw on to that Al-Baarida, Al-Busayri and Zaqaaqiyyaat Khaleel Mountain. 
  
But, even more impressive, was the Russian Air Force’s stunning annihilation of a huge convoy of ISIS rats leaving Al-Raqqa in order to further a plan drawn up by the United States to open highway access from Al-Raqqa to Palmyra.  The plan was not to destroy more Roman ruins at the ancient city.  No, all of this was a part of the project to install a vassal state that would be controlled by Kurd allies of the U.S. in order to prevent the extension of the natural gas pipeline from Iran to Syria.

The ISIS force departed Al-Raqqa on May 25, 2017 at approximately 3:00 a.m. local time.  Russia had received a heads-up from SAA-MI about both human intelligence reports and intercepted communications between American, British and Jordanian terrorist enablers in the MOK HQ near Al-Naseeb.  According to my sources, the U.S. promised to keep the SAAF at bay as the large ISIS force moved south toward Palmyra.  An agreement was drawn up between the RuAF and the Syrian High Command to permit only Russian aircraft to fly since Syrian aircraft could be shot down by the Americans if they were interfering in some farfetched and typically idiotic plan hatched in Jordan.  With the aircraft carrying Russian insignia, there was no conceivable way the U.S. could interdict Moscow’s airpower.

That left ISIS, on May 27, 2017, as an open target on the highway south just before Qal’at Jabal Jaabir.  Russian Sukhoi bombers unloaded thousands of tons of ordnance on a densely packed convoy carrying not only rodents, but large quantities of resupplies for besieged cannibals in areas, like Khunayfis, soon to be liberated by the SAA.  Aerial assessments and intercepted calls by ISIS rodent officers told a story of utter devastation and complete American/British failure.  It is estimated that over 120 ISIS rats were killed in the air raids.  Over 500 are reported wounded or missing.  Of the 39 pickups traveling in the convoy, 32 were confirmed destroyed.  All pickups were armed with 23mm cannons.

It is highly unlikely that ISIS will cooperate again with such imbeciles such as those degenerates in Jordan.  It has also become quite obvious that James “Mad Dog” Mattis is a pathological liar when he states that his war against ISIS is one of “annihilation”.           
________________________________________
ALEPPO:
image: https://i2.wp.com/jpnews-sy.com/ar/images/news/big/120820.jpg?w=700

أبرز التطورات الميدانية على الساحة السورية

While all this is going on in Eastern Homs, the Syrian Army has racked up startlingly formidable victories in Aleppo.  As of this morning the following towns, villages and sites have been liberated:  Al-Saalihiyya, Al-Shuhadaa`, Al-Battooshiyya, Jibaab Al-Mas’oodiyyda, Khazraaf, Al-Far’iyya, Musareeha, Al-Mazza, First Tishreen Farms, Al-Waasit, East Al-Sukkariyya, Bandooqa, Maskana Train Station, Al-Hameediyya, Dawr Ahmad Yaaseen, Al-Qaahira, Al-Boo-Maani’, Khaan Al-Shi’r, Khirbat Al-Sawda, Al-Himraawi, Maskana Cattle Market. 

This operation has stalled a few times, but, continued with forward momentum as of 4 days ago with ISIS fortifications pulverized by the SAA.  At the end of the day, the SAA has killed over 2000 ISIS rodents, and destroyed the following:
115 Toyota pickup trucks with 23m cannons

7 tanks
6 automobiles used to transport terrorist leaders
4 heavy cannons
1 main command-control center
14 separate communications sites
5 booby-trapped vehicles
 
The Syrian Army has confirmed the deaths of these terrorist leaders:

  • Abu Ayyoob Al-Sheeshaani (Chechen pederast)
  • Abu Ismaa’eel Al-Juwaymi (Saudi rodent pimple and legal “scholar” for the “Hatteen” group.  Hatteen is where Saladdin crushed the Crusaders on the Golan Heights after his sister was raped and killed.)
  • Abu Ya’qoob Al-Turkestaani (Turkman catamite)
  • Abu Ya’qoob Al-Uzbeki (Uzbeki bottom feeding carp and leader of Dibs ‘Afnaan area.)
  • Mahmoud Ismaa’eel Kawchak (Turk hemorrhoid and leader of Al-Mushrifa area.)
  • Ahmad Al-‘Uthmaan (Mufti for ISIS in Maskana)
  • Abdul-Rahmaan Miqnaass (a/k/a Abi Sa’eed Al-Sa’oodi.  He is said to be related to the House of Sa’ood.  Not anymore)
  • Safwaan Al-Dhayb (Iraqi toilet brush)
  • Abdul-Ra`oof Abu-Hinna (Moroccan Schmoroccan fecal week bud)
  • Abu-Rihaab Al-Sheeshaani (Chechen hog wart)
  • Abu-Yusuf Al-Ustraali (Some slime from Down Under.)  




Heat wave in France

France heat wave: Locals break 300 fire hydrants in bid to beat high temperatures

 France heat wave: Locals break 300 fire hydrants in bid to beat high temperatures


RT,
29 May, 2017

Some 300 fire hydrants have been broken or vandalized across France as people try to beat the summer’s record high temperatures.

As temperatures topped 35 degrees across the Paris region of Île-de-France, numerous roadways flooded after hydrants were transformed into geysers, BFMTV reported.

In Plaine Saint-Denis neighborhood in the Paris suburbs, fire hydrants were left open for much of Sunday night and Monday morning

This lasts for more than a week now,” said one Plaine Saint-Denis resident. “A group of young people come with a wrench and open fire hydrants.”

For them it's funny, there's water coming out, they're cooling off, except that …. It’s still vandalism,” another added.

Average temperatures across the region hit 22.3 degrees Celsius, according to La Chaine Meteo. A previous record average of 21.9 degrees Celsius was set in 1922.

Paris firefighters were forced to remind the public that fire hydrants are used to extinguish fire, not for recreational purposes.

Refreshing with the hydrants [is] a bad idea! Fire hydrants are for the safety of everyone and are reserved for firefighters!”Paris firefighters said in a statement.

In Lyon, violence erupted on the streets after firefighters clashed with a group who had been asked to stop their activities. A number of projectiles were thrown at emergency services, local media reported.




The Great Barrier Reef cannot be saved

Great Barrier Reef can no longer be saved, Australian experts concede
'In our lifetime and on our watch, substantial areas of the Great Barrier Reef and the surrounding ecosystems are experiencing major long-term damage'


28 May, 2017

The Great Barrier Reef – a canary in the coal mine for global warming – can no longer be saved in its present form partly because of the “extraordinary rapidity” of climate change, experts have conceded.

Instead, action should be taken to maintain the World Heritage Site's 'ecological function' as its ecological health declines, they reportedly recommended.


Like coral across the world, the reef has been severely damaged by the warming of the oceans with up to 95 per cent of areas surveyed in 2016 found to have been bleached.
great-barrier-reef-bleaching.jpg

Bleaching is not always fatal but a study last year found the “largest die-off of corals ever recorded” with about 67 per cent of shallow water coral found dead in a survey of a 700km stretch.

Now experts on a committee set up by the Australian government to improve the health of the reef have revealed that they believe the lesser target of maintaining its “ecological function” is more realistic.

In a recent communique, the expert panel said they were “united in their concern about the seriousness of the impacts facing the Reef and concluded that coral bleaching since early 2016 has changed the Reef fundamentally”. 

 “There is great concern about the future of the Reef, and the communities and businesses that depend on it, but hope still remains for maintaining ecological function over the coming decades,” it said.
Members agreed that, in our lifetime and on our watch, substantial areas of the Great Barrier Reef and the surrounding ecosystems are experiencing major long-term damage which may be irreversible unless action is taken now. 
The planet has changed in a way that science informs us is unprecedented in human history. While that in itself may be cause for action, the extraordinary rapidity of the change we now observe makes action even more urgent.”

It recommended that reducing greenhouse gas emissions “must be central to the response”. 

This needs to be coupled with increased efforts to improve the resilience of the coral and other ecosystems that form the Great Barrier Reef. The focus of efforts should be on managing the Reef to maintain the benefits that the Reef provides,” it added.
While the committee's communique did not expressly give up hope that the reef could be saved in its current form, the Guardianreported that two experts on the committee, speaking anonymously, revealed they had recommended introducing the goal of maintaining "ecological function" at a recent meeting.

And the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority explained what that would mean. 
The concept of ‘maintaining ecological function’ refers to the balance of ecological processes necessary for the reef ecosystem as a whole to persist, but perhaps in a different form, noting the composition and structure may differ from what is currently seen today,” the authority said.
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who sits on the expert panel, told the newspaper they were trying to manage reefs in a “rapidly changing world”.
So managing to restore the reefs of the past – the way they were prior to the big insults of the 80s, 90s and 2000s ... maybe we need to be looking at this in a different sense,” he said.
What are the key ecological functions? Essentially, what roles do they play that are important to humans?”
The expert committee's views could lead to the reef beingdeclared a World Heritage Site "in danger", a finding that the Australian government has resisted

Abrupt climate change in a nutshell

A Brief Overview of My Message
Guy McPherson


30 May, 2017

I delivered a short presentation to a group of International Environmental Law students in Brisbane, Australia on 28 May 2017. My presentation was delivered electronically from western Belize. The resulting video was recorded and edited by Pauline Schneider with my thanks. The 20-minute video is embedded below, and is followed by a transcript of my presentation (from which I deviated occasionally). I’ve added a few embedded links in this written version.




What would you do if you had 10 years to live? How would you act? How would you live?

What if it was 4 years?

What if it was 14 months?

What if it was 4 months?

Would you live more fully every day? Every moment?

Would you prioritize your work differently? Or your relationships?

What is important to you? Who is important to you? Are you acting NOW as if these things and these beings are important?

I’ll talk primarily about 5 topics today: (1) habitat for human animals, (2) Civilization as a heat engine, (3) the Catch-22 of terminating civilization, (4) the Sixth Mass Extinction on Earth, and (5) how we respond to a terminal diagnosis.
First up: What is habitat? According to the first definition in my Merriam-Webster online dictionary, habitat is “the place or environment where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives and grows.”

I’m professor emeritus of conservation biology, and I largely agree with this simplistic definition. Habitat is one of the three pillars of conservation biology, along with speciation and extinction. Speciation is the process of how, when, and with what ancestors a species comes into existence. For example, our favorite species, Homo sapiens, came into being about 200,000 years ago, is descended from earlier members of the genus Homo — all of which are now extinct — and is currently represented by some 7.5 billion specimens. Some of these specimens were clever enough to choose their parents and their date and place of birth in a manner that allowed them to seek degrees in law at a certain university in Australia.

Extinction is the process by which a species meets its demise. So far, more than 99% of the species to appear on Earth have gone extinct. Based on substantial evidence, our own species is headed into the abyss of extinction far sooner than most people realize.

According to James Hansen, the godfather of climate science, we’ve had humans on the planet up to about 2 degrees Celsius above the 1750 baseline, when the planetary temperature was about 13.5 C. Hansen reported this conclusion in a legal brief filed on August 12, 2015. I suspect 2 C above the 1750 baseline is the maximum temperature at which we will have habitat for humans on Earth. We’re currently at least 1.6 degrees above the 1750 baseline. No species persists long without habitat, not even the clever ones.

A synthetic paper written by Oliver Tickell and published in the Guardian on August 11, 2008 concluded via headline, “On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinction.” That 4 C number seems a tad high to me. The paper goes on to explain that humans will persist up to 6 C above the 1750 baseline, thus about 19.5 C. I doubt there will be a tree on the planet, or much other complex life, with a rapid rise to 17.5 C. But we don’t know, because we’ve never experienced Earth with humans at anywhere close to 4 C above baseline, much less at 6 C above baseline, about 19.5 C.

Onto Item Two, Civilization as a heat engine. Tim Garrett is a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah. He has been studying the thermodynamics of civilization for several years, and wrote the signature paper on the topic in 2007. In that and subsequent papers, Garrett concluded that civilization itself is a heat engine. His initial paper on the topic was submitted in 2007, rejected by ten journals, and finally accepted for publication in the prestigious journal Climatic Change in 2009 by a courageous editor during his final months on Earth. The paper was ultimately printed in February 2011. The initial paper is supported by subsequent papers that point out that the heat engine of civilization can be stopped only when civilization collapses.

Civilization is a tricky subject, so I’ll clarify what it means, from Garrett’s perspective. Civilization refers to the set of living arrangements into which most of us were born and to which we’ve all become accustomed. Collapse of civilization means no fuel at the filling stations, no food at the grocery stores, and no water pouring out the municipal taps. This civilization — industrial civilization — is like all previous versions of civilization in that it depends upon the production, storage, and distribution of grains at considerable scale. Without storing food, there is no means by which humans can go into human-population overshoot.

Civilizations first arose a few thousand years ago in more half-a-dozen places around the globe. No civilization came into being for the first 2.8 million years of the genus Homo, or for the first roughly 200,000 years of the species Homo sapiens, and suddenly civilizations were popping up like trolls on YouTube. People within these early civilizations discovered grains such as maize and wheat, thus enabling humans to survive through the droughts and other environmental inconveniences. Large-scale production and storage of grains also allowed control of the local food supply, hence control of the people. Thus did the sociopaths assume control.

Why did several civilizations arise essentially simultaneously a few thousand years ago? Apparently to the answer to this question is found within the global-average temperature of the planet. Coming out of the last Ice Age, the global-average planetary temperature rose from 12 degrees Celsius to about 13.5 degrees C. More importantly, planetary temperature stabilized at that point. This relatively cool and stable temperature allowed grains to be grown in sufficient quantities to allow development of cities. The word “city” shares the same root as civilization, Civitas, and the building of cities is the very definition of civilization. After all, cities allow human-population overshoot, initially locally and ultimately globally, because they depend upon surrounding areas for the delivery of clean air, potable water, healthy food, and the wood, bricks, and mortar by which structures are created.

Not only is civilization a heat engine, even if the civilization is powered by “renewable” energy, but each civilization trashes the planet to provide conveniences for city-dwellers. Consider, for example, the 200 or so species being driven to extinction every day, the fouling of the air, the pollution of the waters, the utter destruction of the soil, and the many other undesirable outcomes of this version of civilization.

The story we tell ourselves about ourselves — to use Mike Sliwa’s definition of civilization — is filled with contradictions. This civilization, like others, is characterized by endemic racism, endemic misogyny, endemic monetary disparity leading to poverty, overshoot of the human population, accelerating extinction of non-human species, and various other undesirable characteristics. Unlike other civilizations, this version is characterized by the infinite-growth paradigm, nuclear materials sufficient to cause our own extinction via multi-generational horrors resulting from lethal mutations, and also a much quicker means to our end: global dimming.

Global dimming is the Catch-22 of human extinction, our item three. Civilization is a heat engine that is in the process of killing all life on Earth. Turning off civilization destroys most complex life on the planet, even faster than keeping it running. Allow me to explain, albeit briefly.

As we all know, industrial civilization puts into the atmosphere greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and a few others. These greenhouse gases serve as “blankets” that hold the heat provided by the sun close to Earth. As it turns out, industrial activity also produces particulates that serve as an “umbrella” and protect the planet from incoming sunlight. These particulates are cooling the planet to the tune of about 3 degrees Celsius. Industrial activity constantly puts these particulates into the atmosphere, most notably by burning coal high in sulfur. The particulates constantly fall out, very rapidly. If we suddenly stop burning coal and other fossil fuels, the global-average temperature of Earth heats to more than 4.5 C above baseline in a few days.

The slow rise in planetary temperature to date has destroyed habitat for myriad species including, in many places, humans. The gradual rise in global-average temperature since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is proceeding 10,000 times faster than vertebrates can adapt, according to the stunningly conservative refereed journal literature. Abrupt climate change has recently begun. An abrupt global-average rise in temperature resulting from the loss of global dimming taking Earth to more than 4.5 C above the 1750 baseline, with the vast majority of the temperature rise occurring within a few months, surely will destroy habitat for our species and many others far faster than expected. It’s difficult for me to imagine much multicellular life on our only home with a rapid rise from the current temperature to a much warmer temperature in a matter of decades, much less months.

We are in the midst of the Sixth Mass Extinction on Earth. This is item four. The current rate of extinction of species, along with the current rise in planetary temperature, is unprecedented in planetary history. The ultra-conservative refereed journal literature caught up to the Sixth Mass Extinction on June 19, 2015 with a paper in Science Advances. Coincident with release of the paper, lead author Gerardo Cellabos concluded via interview, “life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on.” Indeed, a United Nations report issued during August 2010 conservatively estimated the extinction rate of 150-200 species each day. Nearly five years later, the journal literature caught up to the ongoing genocide.

The worst of the previous five Mass Extinction Events occurred about 252.2 million years ago. The Great Dying was characterized by a global-average rise in temperature from Ice Age — 12 degrees C — to hothouse and beyond: 23 C. This is the warmest temperature experienced by Earth during the last 2 billion years. It has happened once. According my own conservative analysis from August 1, 2016 analysis on my blog, guymcpherson.com, we are headed for a similar temperature by mid-2026. That’s in less than a decade. I simply added the primary contributors to global heating to come up with this result.

According to an analysis posted on the Arctic News blog on April 24, 2017 that assumes exponential temperature rise, rather than simply adding up the primary contributors of temperature rise, the planet will reach 23 C — some 9.5 degrees above the 1750 baseline — in 2021. That’s in four years. Lest you believe this is crazy, a similar analysis conducted in 2012 predicted only a global-average rise in temperature of 4 C above the 1750 baseline by 2030. The analysis from 2012 has proven wildly conservative.

We’re headed for an ice-free Arctic, as predicted by the United States Naval Postgraduate School. This event last happened some 3 million years ago, before our genus appeared on Earth. In 2013, the School predicted an ice-free Arctic in 2016, plus or minus three years. We’ve dodged four bullets so far, and it appears our luck is about to run out. An ice-free Arctic, which appears imminent this summer, seems likely to trigger the 50-Gt burst of methane from the relatively shallow sea floor of the Arctic Ocean described by field researcher Natalia Shakhova and colleagues at the European Geophysical Union meeting in 2008 as “highly possible for abrupt release at any time.” Such as event would raise global-average temperature beyond the temperature experienced by humans in the past, and almost certainly would cause the demise of civilization as a result of our inability to produce and store grains at large scale, thereby adding another 3 C or so to global-average temperature.Thus could Earth reach 19.C C, about 6 C above the 1750 baseline of 13.5 C, by next summer. That’s in 14 months.

People in bunkers might survive a few years. They’ll be dehydrated, hungry, lonely, and living within a bleak world nearly devoid of other complex life. Their survival will be a day-to-day proposition, with every day more tenuous than the day before, much as it is today for non-human species.

Or perhaps civilization will reach its overdue end as a result of the demise of the petro-dollar this September, consistent with the kinds of events that have occurred historically during past Septembers. I’m not predicting this outcome. And 

I’m not ruling it out. If it occurs, we can expect an abrupt global-average rise in temperature well beyond the temperature at which Earth has harbored anything resembling humans. Most people dwelling in cities will die within a few days as a result of dehydration or starvation. October 1 is 120 days way.

Finally, then, as item five, I’d like to consider how we act. I strongly suspect we are the final humans on Earth. In light of this knowledge, will you live more fully every day? Every moment?

Will you prioritize your work differently? Or your relationships?

What is important to you? Who is important to you? Are you acting NOW as if these things and these beings are important?

Are you passionately pursuing a life of excellence? Or are you stuck on the treadmill onto which you were born? Do you reinforce the jail cell into which you were born with bars comprised of societal expectations? Are you pursuing a life of your own choosing, or are the cultural shackles strong enough to control your every action?

To summarize, I have three essential messages:
Remain calm, as nothing is under control.
Pursue excellence, even within a culture of mediocrity.
Pursue love, contrary to the messages we receive every day from this culture.

Thank you.