Melting ice drives global mass redistribution
If you don’t believe in global warming, then you most likely won’t be aware that one of its least obvious effects is a very small slowdown in the earth’s rotation. And unlike the lethal droughts, heat waves and floods currently sweeping the planet, this one second lapse has no harmful effects at this point.
The cause of the phenomenon is the shifting of huge masses of water as ice melts rapidly at both ends of the planet. The ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica are several miles thick, enough mass to exert a strong gravitational pull on the oceans. The global redistribution of weight is actually slowing Earth’s rotation minutely, which may result in the elimination of a “leap second” later this decade.
Greenland Is Shedding 33 Million Tons of Ice… Per Hour
None of this is shocking in the greater scheme of things: the planet’s rotation speed is also affected by natural phenomenon such as volcanos, earthquakes tidal forces, and changes in wind patterns.
Quoted in Scientific American, Geophysicist Duncan Agnew said: “This is another one of those ‘this has never happened before’ things that we’re seeing from global warming: the idea that this effect is large enough to change the rotation of the entire Earth.” Duncan is co-author of the research just reported by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
More immediate climate developments are summarized here.
“This is another one of those ‘this has never happened before’ things that we’re seeing from global warming: the idea that this effect is large enough to change the rotation of the entire Earth.”
– Geophysicist Duncan Agnew, Scripps.
FLORIDA GOP LEGISLATURE DEFEATS GLOBAL WARMING WITH MAGICAL THINKING
A simple and elegant Republican solution
including sudden Dubai inundation, western and southern Africa droughts, Venezuela ablaze, Florida cancels climate change. epic China floods, sparkling wine threatened by drought, Bangalore running out of water, Bogota running out of water, Madagascar extended drought and Dengue fever spreading.
.
Are you ready for Rain Enhancement Science?
There are some interesting take aways to be derived from April’s torrential desert rain event, which dropped 5 to 10 inches of water in one day on Dubai, killing several people (including schoolchildren) and truly messing up one of the planet’s most modern cities.
The region was hit by four consecutive storms that inundated a large swath of the United Arab Emirates and moved on to Pakistan and Iran. This was well over a year’s worth of rain in a city that has little or no flood drainage infrastructure. The storms were unusual in the suddenness of the onslaught, and the force they brought to bear, unrooting palm trees and shattering windows.
This was well over a year’s worth of rain in a city that has little or no flood drainage infrastructure. While it is clear that this was a historic weather calamity, it is not clear whether it was unprecedented. Official government press releases reference the beginning of government data collection in 1949, but make no mention of a massive flood that may have triggered it.
UAE has been engaged in weather control attempts for decades, primarily cloud seeding.
Whether or not government cloud seeding (AKA Rainfall Enhancement Science) directly caused this particular record-shattering event, human caused global warming was the ultimate driver. Most experts are saying weather enhancement efforts may have triggered the storms, but can’t account for their unrelenting violence. Rising temperatures associated with global warming increase evaporation, fueling other extreme weather events, including droughts. Such a parade of alternating climate disasters is devastating for nations such as Bolivia and Australia.
What could go wrong?
The government of UAE is not known for transparency, but it does not deny engaging in climate control efforts. It seems relatively likely that cloud seeding by plane took place earlier in the week and perhaps had unintended consequences. This is not the first human effort at human weather geoengineering (fucking with things we don’t fully understand) and it is only the beginning.
Geoengineering has already been blamed for storms in California and Australia, although cause and effect is generally shaky. I can only assure you that weather control is going to be fertile ground for conspiracy theories.
And some might even be true.
Catch up with spring 2024 climate shocks right here.
Global warming shrank my chocolate egg
The most alarming of climate alarmists are predicting one or more Black Swan events in the near future. The term refers to major catastrophes, collapses and cataclysms that have occurred infrequently throughout human and geologic history. “Black swan” carries the connotation that the event was foreseeable and perhaps preventable. The Covid pandemic, the 1929 stock crash and the Fukushima nuclear meltdown were black swans of the recent past; the impending breakdown of the AMOC is a probable future example.
Black swan climate events have occurred cyclically in the past, causing extremely rapid changes in global conditions, sometimes within a human lifetime. The Anthropocene climate upheaval of the present will most likely bring a series of black swan events, but with a twist: this is the first radical planetary change wrought almost entirely by human activity. Generally, a meteorite strike or mega volcano eruption has been involved.
Less radical long time climate prophets such as myself think (or hope) that the worst to come will be preceded by something less dramatic, at least for the near future. What I foresee is a series of Gray Swan events: non-cataclysmic scenarios that will cause serious but not lethal disruption of smug “first world” life styles. A slow decline consisting of a parade accelerating inconveniences. Less and less stuff. Even a shortage of Mylar party balloons. Even after Alaric’s unfortunate visit in 476 CE, it took a long time for Rome to fully collapse.
A grey swan occurrence could be a killer storm, a hide tide and high seas disaster that takes out the luxury condos of a coastal vacation infrastructure (such as those already taking place more and more frequently). Typically, the sparkling beach sand will be replaced at great cost and new resorts will be rise again. In spite of the huge property loss, these events fit comfortably in a gray swan scenario (depending on whose money is involved) until the losses become too great. But beware: gray swan morphs to black swan when the insurance companies pull out for good (a development that already happening).
For most participants in Western Civilization, crop failure-driven food shortages are the looming gray swans of today. In real time, for example, climate change is costing Vietnam’s rice bowl $3 billion a year in failed harvests; you are unlikely to be aware of these far away developments because you are not currently affected. It will be when multiple rice producing regions fail at the same time that global prices will go up. For now, only the Vietnamese farmers are screwed. Similarly, products grown in climate challenged places such as Pakistan, Sudan, Chad, Honduras and the Sahel etc. only affect the locals for now.
And while many choose to make inflation a political problem, Europe’s 2023 heat wave affected soy, maize and sunflower harvests, ultimately triggering up to a full percentage point of US inflation. Closer to home, when the Ogallala aquifer taps out under the Great Plains, then you are going to see some serious ag issues.
As climate change accelerates, global disruptions will eclipse the Covid pandemic.
To a large degree, the leading edge of this inevitability will be shortages of luxury goods, followed eventually by their absence. Ironically, it has long been my belief that these inconveniences will be nearly as convincing to climate fence-sitters as watching someone else’s coastal home washing out to sea.
MOMMY MOMMY, MY CHOCOLATE BUNNY IS ALL SHRUNK
(That’s OK honey, we’ll buy you two)
To these evolving shortages we can add sustained pressure on cocoa prices, driven by a combination of ongoing drought, extreme weather and evil corporate behavior in West Africa. Bad yields have tripled the price of chocolate to $10,000 a ton (although the monopolistic system assures that farmers lose out). If the hedge funds who have already bet billions are correct, the situation will continue to worsen over the foreseeable future (as reported by the Financial Times).
Last week, the cocoa crisis was manifested in the price of chocolate Easter products- from high-end Cadbury eggs to more pedestrian Hershey rabbits – following a 13% increase in the overall price of chocolate candy over the past year. Before that you may have noticed candy bars becoming incrementally smaller or thinner or offering less chocolate content in other ways (the candy equivalent of a short pour). (Shrinkflation is the proper economic term) The yearslong shrinkage of the Cadbury cream egg has become a minor scandal, not spoken of in polite society.
Fine wine is just one example: more frequent extended droughts, unpredictable water cycles and violent storms are already impacting traditional wine making regions as higher temperatures shift harvest schedules, while pests and diseases migrate to new domains. Over the past few years we have also seen major spikes in the prices of beef, citrus fruit and sugar. Extremely rapid warming in the Gulf of Maine is driving lobsters north toward cooler waters an ominous development for seafood lovers.
These increases are all caused to some degree by the impact of global heating.
You will see major pressures on coffee as rising temperatures reduce growing areas by up to 50% in the next decade. Similarly, 90% of marine and fresh water stocks are endangered in one way or another by a combination of changing ocean temperature and over-fishing. Ocean species continue to move north in search of cooler waters, but North only goes so far north until you run out of planet.
I could go on.
Although there are those who would love to blame Biden (because he loves raising prices in an election year, just for fun) these increases are caused to some degree by the impact of climate. You will see major pressures on coffee as rising temperatures reduce growing areas by up to 50% in the next decade. Similarly, 90% of marine and fresh water stocks are endangered in one way one way or another by a combination of changing ocean temperature and over-fishing. Ocean species continue to move north in search of cooler waters, but North only goes so far north until you run out of planet..
SIMULTANIOUS CLIMATE SHOCKS OF THE CHART DISCLAIMER THING:
Here I insert the standard disclaimer: None of these conditions and events in isolation would prove global warming, but the fact that they are taking place simultaneously at unprecedented speeds and scale is impossible to dismiss.
As you consider that 2023 set another global record for warmest year in roughly a hundred thousands of years, as ocean temperatures run off the charts, as the North Atlantic is bathtub-warm months before hurricane season, as the fires of Canada’s disastrous 2023 conflagration continue burning underground, as CO2 levels crash through 425 ppm, as methane increases 15+ ppm yearly, as part of Australia bakes and the other half drowns, as rivers in the Arctic turn orange from toxin newly released from permafrost, as Spain and Italy endure relentless drought and historic water crises, as global river shipping is in jeopardized, as Antarctic sea ice undergoes an “abrupt critical transition” to another summer low extent, as a million acres and thousands of cattle are torched in the Texas Panhandle, as Greenland actually turns green with new vegetation, as large swaths of South America see catastrophic wildfires, as the Amazon is on the brink of no return, as glaciers in every mountain range melt away, as species of every kind migrate toward the poles….it’s hard not to see an alarming pattern. The variations from both long term and short term cycles is statistically stunning.
* Ground speed means the planes exceeded 761 MPH in terms of distance traveled.
NOW! For the first time global warming lets you break the sound barrier at no extra charge.
Do they know something we don’t?
(Yes)
The news media is slowly noticing that some of the world’s elite 1% types are building doomsday get-aways, including one said to sport a flaming moat (presumably as a deterrent to hoi polloi hordes trying to escape the climate apocalypse).
Of course, these so-called doomsday bunkers are not well documented: it is doubtful that escape castle portcullis’s will be opened to the public once the first Cat 7 cyclone destroys Savannah, or a long dormant virus escapes the thawing Arctic permafrost or New Orleans disappears for good beneath the Gulf or New South Wales goes up in a final flame. In other words, no media attention is not sought at this time.
Although current not-that-well-informed estimates of the numbers hover as high as fifteen of these installations globally (Peter Theil, Bill Gates, Marc Zuckerberg), my guess is that the total is considerably more than that (Elon is apparently committed to Mars). The global hierarchy will not likely be publicizing these high-end escape modules. There will be no road signs to help the proletariat find them. They have read “The Masque of the Red Death” and know how the townspeople feel about this stuff.
THE ULTIMATE GET AWAY
Nevertheless, word has filtered out from various contractors specializing in this commercial space. Demand began to escalate during the pandemic and continues to climb. The perilous political situation and impending eco-collapse of the planet is also good for business.
Why are the best and the richest building upscale bunkers when they could be buying more super yachts?
Because they know things we don’t.
Maybe you only skim the typically tepid corporate news coverage of the unfolding climate catastrophe, but the terrifying documentation is there for anyone to see. Consider that 2023 set another record for warmest year globally in roughly a hundred thousands of years, for both atmosphere and ocean. We have just experienced the eighth consecutive month of record global heat. Temperature of the seas is off the charts.
The North Atlantic is bathtub-warm months before normal as the fires of Canada’s disastrous 2023 conflagration continue burning underground as part of Australia bakes and the other half drowns as rivers in the Arctic turn orange from newly released toxins as Spain and Italy endure relentless drought as global river shipping is in jeopardized as Antarctic sea ice undergoes an “abrupt critical transition” to another summer low extent as the Texas Panhandle burns as Greenland turns green with new vegetation as large swaths of South America see catastrophic wildfires as the Amazon is on the brink of no return as glaciers in every mountain range melt away and the effects of escaping methane are just beginning to kick in.*
If you don’t believe climate scientists’ warnings, maybe you’ll believe one of the world’s largest insurance companies.
According to the world’s second largest insurance broker Aon PLC , the number of billion dollar climate disasters in 2023 was the highest ever.
Record number of billion-dollar disasters in 2023: 398 events caused $380 billion in losses globally
Driving all this is a dozen climate feedback cycles that have passed the point of no return. SEE PAGE.
This is what I already know. Imagine what people with limitless resources know.

Another way to look at it: If I were a billionaire (increasingly unlikely), I personally would be building a nice, secure compound deep inside a mountain, on the water or beneath the Antarctic snow pack. The challenge is mostly money and time. Have you seen what these guys want for even a modest luxury bunker
In summary, there is good reason to believe the 1% knows far more about what is coming than Joe Citizen. No one knew the certainty of the global climate shock better than Exxon many decades ago, so it seems reasonable to conclude that tech billionaires have access to data and other resources that predict a very rough ride for much of the planet. But with a nice bunker escape estate, there’s no reason the End Times have to cut into one’s lifestyle.
FROM DOCTOR STRANGLOVE TO TRIDENT LAKES
The elite survival bunker is not a new idea, although generally the survival modules of the last century were focused on surviving a nuclear holocaust. Dr. Strangelove with Peter Sellers was a great film of the Sixties, but like many parodies, some of the concepts were real, already in place under the West Virginia mountains. Project Greek Island was a huge fallout shelter facility intended for use by the United States Congress and special companions.
And then there is (was) Trident Lakes, one of the twenty-first centuries most embarrassing developments, which went Chapter 7 bankrupt (MORE bankrupt than regular bankruptcy) in 2018, leaving only a dried up fountain on the site. Envisioned in the above ground section was an18-hole golf course, high-end spa, gun ranges, zip lines, shops and restaurants, all protected by a wall and watchtowers designed to kill zombies, poor people and journalists. Most of the post-apocalyptic living space was supposed to be below ground.
And membership was to be by invitation only!
*None of these conditions and events in isolation would prove global warming, but the fact that they are taking place simultaneously at unprecedented speeds and scales is impossible to dismiss.
“The alarming thing is how far our human reach is, in a big way.”
– Roman Dial, Prof. Biology, Alaska Pacific University.
Unless one follows the breakdown of the planetary climate system, most people aren’t aware that many of Alaska’s rivers are now flowing a rusty orange and turning seriously acidic, as chemicals once locked by the frozen permafrost begin to leach out into surrounding waterways.
This recent Arctic development is directly related to an earlier post that reported several other consequences of rapid permafrost thaw. In that post I summarized several climate phenomena triggered by the thawing of permafrost and the resulting release of methane gas from various places it has been stored for a long time. The developments include exploding methane craters, flammable bubbling lakes, marine seafloor frozen CH4 clathrates and creeping megaslumps.
(I did NOT cover the collapse of the Arctic human infrastructure or the very possible emergence of viruses and bacteria also trapped by frozen ground – two more separate topics.)
Now we see another alarming scenario brewing, as the iconic Salmon River, the Agashashok River and number of other Alaskan waterways – about 75 at this point – are flowing hazy orange, with acidity levels running 100 times higher than expected and low dissolved oxygen measurements. According Scientific American’s January 1 article, analysis of the waterway shows it contains high levels of manganese and iron that are similar industrial wastewater. And yet this river was once described as having “water of exceptional clarity.”
This is not the usual mining wastewater scenario, which is caused directly by human dumping of poison from extraction sites. Rather it is one step removed: as anthropomorphic global warming raises temperatures, it melts the tundra faster, releasing microbes that free yet more trapped greenhouse gases and so on…we’ve covered this particular feedback before.
There are other reports – not verified at this point – that the same thing is happening in northern Canada and Siberia. Given the cause and effect trail, it would be surprising if it were not. And the emerging situation may be worse than what can been seen: the ominous discoloration is determined by the chemical makeup of a specific watershed’s sediments, so not all contaminated rivers will look rusty. Sadly, the acidic pH levels (6.4) are far more dangerous to river life and surrounding ecosystems, and that data is not visible.
Scientists at this point are indicating that the minerals are leaching out of rock that has been newly exposed to water and suddenly active bacteria in defrosting wetlands are also releasing iron, manganese and other elements.
Although we expect this phenomenon to worsen rapidly, it has already negatively affected the indigenous way of life. The increased quantities of dissolved minerals and salts in the waters of the Wulik and Kobuk rivers to increase, threatening the drinking water supply for native communities. The affects are seen in fish and wildlife, with key staple fish species are reported deformed in increasing numbers.
There is a certain amount of low grade irony in the fact that many the most powerful effects of global heating are taking place in the relative cold of the Arctic. Not only is this region warming three time faster than the rest of the planet, but visual evidence of ecosphere collapse in the far North tends to takes more exotic and dramatic form than in the lower latitudes: Exploding craters, flammable lakes, crashing glaciers. But comparatively few humans live in the Arctic and therefore miss all the powerful evidence of the broken climate on display.
It will only be when extreme weather events and the serious disruptions to the food supply affect their own lives that people will truly understand.

As ice melts on the lakes for the first time in thousands of years, newly released methane bubbles up from the deposits below. which can sometimes be lit. Batagaika Crater in Siberia is a half mile wide and 330 ft. deep.

New methane craters continue to blast out of the Siberian tundra.
One of the first and still the largest emerged in Turkmenistan 1971 with some help from a drilling rig and continues to burn today. The so called “Gates of Hell” (also known as the Darvaza gas crater) is about 200 ft. in diameter and 100 ft. deep. Since then, dozens of new craters have emerged without the help of humans, with blasts that can be heard 60 miles away. This anthropomorphic phenomenon is a direct result of global warming, linked to the thawing of permafrost triggered by runaway warming in the Arctic.
Methane (CH4) has been trapped beneath Arctic permafrost for many thousands of years. Now the frozen land cap is thawing across the Arctic regions, releasing massive quantities of the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. As the permafrost thins and weakens on the surface, it is also heated from below by gas deposits.
Although it dissipates after 12 years, methane (renamed by the fossil boys “natural gas” to make it sound more friendly) is far more powerful than CO2*. It also explodes. At this point, science doesn’t know for certain how much of the gas is down there, but spewing additional megatons of CH4 into the atmosphere can’t be good.
The Clathrate Menace Beneath the Sea
And below the surface of the Arctic seas lurks another ominous peril, with a name out of a Phillip K. Dick horror fantasy. Composed of methane frozen within a crystal of water, methane clathrate (CH4·5.75H2O) or “fire ice” is found in the deepest sediments of the ocean. As the seafloor temperature increases, these reservoirs appear to be destabilizing, releasing methane into the ocean and atmosphere. While this process is not fully understood at this point, evidence is clear that there have been dramatic, rapid climatic consequences in the past. Although unproven, the “methane burp” hypothesis claims an event during the Paleocene epoch raised deep ocean temperatures about 10F.
The Megaslump that ate Siberia
In 2023, Batagaika Crater – the world’s largest permafrost crater – continued to grow in Siberia. Already more than 330 ft. deep and half a mile wide, this monster “mega-slump” is expanding at about 33 ft. a year. This part of Siberia is warming about 2.5 times faster than the rest of the planet is warming, accelerating the land surface thaw.
These non-explosive but more widespread craters are another dramatic manifestation of land subsidence caused by permafrost collapse. This phenomenon was first noted in the 1960s and is becoming more and more common as the climate warms.
Also related (and lots of fun in their own right) are thermokarst lakes: the entertainment value being related to the fact that you can light them on fire. As ice melts on the lakes for the first time in thousands of years, newly released methane bubbles up from the deposits below. The greenhouse gas emissions from these lakes deploys powerful climate effects because of the rapid release of long stored CO2.
Blowing through the albedo feedback loop
Of the many climate feedbacks at work on the planet, the “albedo” effect is one of the most convincing. As snow cover and sea ice area diminish, less solar heat energy is reflected back into space and more is absorbed into the oceans and land, further heating the planetary systems which accelerates thawing of the permafrost.
While most noticeable in Siberia, these phenomena are also taking place in Alaska and Canada.
Getting Yelled At By The Petro Sultan
The Host With The Most…To Lose
I don’t know, does anyone else think that there might be some sketchy optics when a major oil producing nation hosts a global climate conference, and the president of the event – head of the state oil company – publicly objects to the term “phaseout” of fossil fuels. The very mention of such a thing caused Cop28 conference president Sultan Al Jaber to insist there is “no science” indicating that a “phase-out” of fossil fuels is necessary. In fact, the petro boss was a little cranky with press members asking such awkward questions of the host. The host of the climate event.
“I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation. I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist. There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C,” ranted Al Jaber. ”Stop the pointing of fingers. Stop it!”
Hey, sorry Al! Didn’t mean to offend. Hoping this doesn’t mean I won’t be invited back?
To be quite candid, a lot of people disagree with the Sultan. In fact, the past month saw a couple of successive days in which the magic 1.5C threshold was already breached. 2023 is the hottest month globally for hundreds of thousands of years. Emissions are still climbing, ice melt at both poles is accelerating, droughts are emptying rivers, atmospheric CO2 has soared past 420 ppm for good and extreme weather event insurance losses breached $100 billion annually. The USA is producing more oil and gas than anytime in history.
So then, if the 84,000 attendees of Cop28 weren’t there to phase out fossil fuels, why did they commit all that time and money? Did you guess that the 1,400 oil company lobbyists in attendance were there to promote solar and wind? Nope, sorry, you guessed wrong.
[ FOR ADDITIONAL PERSPECTIVE, THE FIRST WORLD NATIONS COMMITTED FUNDS THAT EQUAL THE COST OF JEFF BEZOS LATEST BOAT. ]
No, the point of this glitzy exercise in lux networking and sustainable partying is to help the distracted, uninterested and overwhelmed public feel as if something meaningful is being done to put the brakes on the runaway climate emergency. In other words, to provide cover for corporate business as usual (even maybe meet some fellow operatives and make a few deals – that oil isn’t going to extract itself).
The strategists who run the global denialist infrastructure have moved past denial (it’s been an ever shifting platform for at least six decades). The new phase is to shape and smooth the narrative to make sure the draconian actions that are now imperative do not happen. Instead, the oil producing entities have most definitely committed more or less to probably take some action pretty soon “as they see fit.” Lots of words, nothing actually binding. And history shows that even those promises will not be kept. There is no enforcement mechanism in the contract that no one will read.
So the way this will work is the way it’s supposed to work: the average citizen will probably peripherally notice that there was a climate summit and they will read the back pat ourselves press releases. They will conclude – because they really want to conclude – that the greatest catastrophe ever to face the species is being taken care of. But it isn’t.
One unprecedented outcome was announced after Cop28: The First World countries agreed for the first time to set aside $550,000,000 for third world companies to “fight” climate change. That’s a lot of zeros. F
For perspective, it’s the price of Jeff Bezos’ latest boat. Maybe Maldives can build some sustainable rafts.