All-time Snow Records Tumbling Again for the Second Straight Year

GAK:
That url ought to have been:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/bond-event-zero
for anyone wanting to save climate history descriptions…

Adolfo Giurfa (11:16:03) :
E.M.Smith Kind of Deja-Vu with present times, don’ t you think?
“This period corresponds to the time following the Decline of the Roman Empire around 480 and the Plague of Justinian (541-542).”
Unfortunately, that is not the only parallel. There is a regular cycle of empires rising and culture flourishing during the Optimum warm periods and then the collapse of empire and destruction of culture during the following Pessimum or cold periods.
IFF we could learn from this and prepare, we could get off of this wheel of fortune… but we seem incapable as a species.
Younger Dryas – cold period. 11,100 years Before Present. Bond Event 8.
End of the Clovis People in North America. Disruptive cold globally.
Boreal – the following warm period when England and Ireland became islands and Eurasia began the march to civilization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreal_(period)
“Those who stayed became hunter-gatherers of the forests and fishers of the numerous bays, inlets and shallow waters around the thousands of islands that now spangled the seas of Europe. They lived richly and were encouraged to enter the pre-productive phase that we call the Mesolithic. Those who moved east hunted out the last of wild big game and turned their best efforts into learning to herd what was left. In the Americas, humans had left the Paleoindian phase and were now in the Archaic.
Meanwhile humanity toward the south of the north temperate zone had already turned to food production in a number of widely separated locations and were on the brink of civilization. ”
Bond Event 7 – un-named about 10,400 BP.
Bond Event 6 – The Erdalen event in Norway and a cold China 9400 BP
Bond Event 5 – 8100 BP. The 8.2 Kiloyear Event. From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2_kiloyear_event
“Cooler and drier conditions prevailed, as in the Younger Dryas though less extreme. Yet the changes may have been severe enough to impact one of the earliest settled human communities: the first phase of Catal Huyuk ended during the 8.2 kiloyear event. The site was abandoned and not re-occupied until about 5 centuries later, when climate conditions had improved markedly.
Drier conditions were notable in North Africa, while East Africa suffered five centuries of general drought. In West Asia and especially Mesopotamia, the 8.2ky event was a three-hundred year aridification and cooling episode, which provided the natural force for Mesopotamian irrigation agriculture and surplus production that were essential for the earliest class-formation and urban life. ”
Bond Event 4 – 5900 BP From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.9_kiloyear_event
“The 5.9 kiloyear event was one of the most intense aridification events during the Holocene. It ended the Neolithic Subpluvial and probably initiated the desiccation of the Sahara desert. Thus, it also triggered world-wide migration to river valleys, e.g. from central North Africa to the Nile valley, what eventually led to the emergence of first complex, highly organised, state-level societies in the 4th millennium BC.”
“In the Middle East the 5.9 kiloyear event led to the abrupt end of the Ubaid period.
The 5.9 kiloyear event was also recorded as a cold event in the Erhai Lake (China) sediments.”
Followed by the rise of the Egyptian empire and the birth of civilization.
Bond Event 3 – 4200 BP From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2_kiloyear_event
“The 4.2 kiloyear BP aridification event was one of the most severe climatic events of the Holocene period in terms of impact on cultural upheaval. Starting in ≈2200 BC, it probably lasted the entire 22nd century BC. It is very likely to have caused the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt as well as the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia. Also, the drought may have initiated southeastward habitat tracking within the Harappan cultural domain.”
“In the Persian Gulf region, there is a sudden change in settlement pattern, style of pottery and tombs at this time. The 22nd century BC drought marks the end of the Umm al-Nar period and the change to the Wadi Suq period.”
“China. The drought may have caused the collapse of Neolithic Cultures around Central China during the late third millennium BC.”
Followed by the rise of the New Kingdom in Egypt and several other cultures flourishing in the following warm period
Bond Event 2 – 2800 BP From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age_Cold_Epoch
“The Iron Age Cold Epoch (also referred to as Iron Age climate pessimum or Iron Age neoglaciation) was a period of unusually cold climate in the North Atlantic region, lasting from about 900 BC to about 300 BC, with an especially cold wave in 450 BC during the expansion of ancient Greece. It was followed by the Roman Age Optimum (200 BC – 300 AD).”
Notice that this was about the time that Egypt sliding into ruin and a lot of history of warfare was being written… This wiki page also has the link to the Roman Age Optimum that is now dead… Wouldn’t want to point out that the golden age of Rome was built on the bones of a cold period (and was followed by a cold period collapse) and that the golden age of Egypt was in a prior warm period… and so the cycle turns.
Bond Event 1 – 1400 BP (or about 450 to 900 AD) which used to link to the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period_Pessimum that has been eaten by the AGW Langoliers… but:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period
Gives a PC version where the invasions of people escaping the cold frozen central Eurasian Steps is call “emigration” or “migration”. When I learned that history 40+ years ago we called it war and invasion… but what’s a few armies, swords, murder and mayhem among friends. Just notice that other than the folks in Carthage attacking Rome all the travel seems to be toward the more southern warmer places… wonder why…
It is also called the Dark Ages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
Which of course was followed by the Medieval Warm Period:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
“The Medieval Warm Period was a time of warm weather around AD 800-1300 during the European Medieval period. Initial research on the MWP and the following Little Ice Age (LIA) was largely done in Europe, where the phenomenon was most obvious and clearly documented”
This period was also the lead-in to the Renaissnace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance
That most of us would admit was a pretty good time for culture and growth of humanity…
Now we have an anomaly. An anomaly to the cold side. We had the Little Ice Age. At about 1/2 the Bond Event cycle, it got cold. We don’t know if this was a 1/2 cycle sub oscillation or was the start of a drop into the next Bond Event and they onset with steps or waves, or just a continuation of the very long term drift to colder weather as we exit this interglacial. An anomaly to the cold side does not argue for warming happening (yet that is what the AGW folks do, but choosing a baseline at the bottom of the LIA).
The Little Ice Age that had a lot of trauma in the world (little things, like Napoleon discovering it was a bad time to invade Russia; and a wholesale emptying of Europe into the new world as they ran away from famine and cold; and the French Revolution when crops failed, and…) That was only a minor taste of what a Bond Event might be. The 178 ish year little brother cycle…
So what does all this mean to me?
This time is not different.
We are in a 10,000 year downward tilting slope into the next ice age.
We have a 1500 year climate cycle that can not be explained nor disappeared. It’s time to get cold. Very cold. And nobody knows why.
We had a preview of what’s to come in the LIA.
We are doing nothing to prepare.
The AGW folks are exactly backwards because they see too short a time frame. They are looking at a minor correction warmer from an unexpected cold interval in a longer term cold trend, and ignoring a proven 1500 year cycle and a 100,000 year glacial cycle.
So now we have the modern optimum. This time it will be different…
(BTW “It’s Different This Time!” is a standard stock traders sarchasm for the folly people regularly show in not learning from their history – It Is never different this time, ever.)
The only good news in all this is that it typically takes a while for empires to collapse and cultures to decay; and we have more technology with which to cope, when we finally realize we ought to be doing something other than watching entertainment and looking for a party. (Shades of Rome…)
So I am quietly hopeful that we can cope, given all the tools we have, and hopeful that the folly of AGW will be shown wrong rather soon; especially given all the snow that stacking up… I give it about 2 years minimum and 15 years maximum.
Then we can start building grain storage, expanding greenhouses, building more power plants, improving hydroponic infrastructure, putting desalination plants near deserts, etc. etc.