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phenomenon occurred at the moment of the pole shift and reversed within the length of a day the temperate Arctic landscape of the Pleistocene into the frozen one that we know today. Whitley Strieber first coined the term "global superstorm" in the book The Coming Global Superstorm, co-authored with Art Bell.* It is a term he used to describe the fictional scenario of the collapse of the North Atlantic oceanic current, resulting in extremely frigid air rushing out of the Arctic, causing tremendous storms worldwide as a result. His idea is based on an anomaly that occurred at the end of the Pleistocene, in an event known by geologists as the Younger Dryas, when the Atlantic conveyor collapsed. This thermohaline circulation shutdown, in association with a change in tropical winds, plunged parts of Europe and North America into an extended period of cooling, in essence reversing the warming effects that had arrived with the ending of the ice age." However, this incident did not create a global winter, unlike in Strieber's scenario, as it only delayed glacial melting for a thousand years and impacted mainly northern Europe and parts of North America.* A real global superstorm as Strieber envisioned would involve a rare event unrecognised by modern science and unprecedented in the history of modern meteorology. Above each pole, north and south, far above the swirling winds of the polar vortex, is a pocket of extremely frigid air in the layer of atmosphere known as the mesosphere. Here, allowing for seasonal variations, temperatures can range from —90 to -125 °C (-130 to -193 °F). The mesosphere has cooled at an estimated one degree per year over the last 30 years. It has also dropped eight kilometres in its ceiling and is predicted to drop another 20 kilometres within the next century. Oddly enough, the increased chilling of the mesosphere is found to be related to increases in greenhouse gas emissions.” A descent of this frigid mesospheric temperature to the surface happens when the Hadley and Ferrel cells collapse at the time that Earth stops and reverses rotation—a truly global superstorm finally realised. Even modified by polar surface temperatures, a descending mesosphere will bring temperatures to Earth's surface in excess of -73.3 °C (-100 °F). The initial descent of the mesosphere at the end of the last ice age would also have resulted in extreme differences in pressure gradients and created winds beyond our currently defined hurricane parameters, with a force that would have disarticulated—and, indeed, did disarticulate—much of what it swept up, as evidence shows in parts of the Alaskan and Siberian landscapes.*” Today, a superstorm will not be confined by one- and two-mile-high glaciers circumventing the northern latitude. Passage through the galactic plane at the end of this type of interglacial period is far more destructive than at the end of a glacial period. The high ocean levels will intrude many miles inland as Earth reverses rotation, and the eruption of Yellowstone will eliminate any effective response the United States might be expected to make on the domestic or international scene. If this arrival of the next ice age is anything like the ending of the last ice age, then the modern human species, as unprepared as it is for this event, seems most likely to follow the same path as the woolly mammoth. 20 About the Author: Michael W. Weir has been a herbalist and researcher for the last 21 years, while homeschooling four children. With his children now grown, he has turned his efforts to scientific validation of the stories of his elders and is currently working on two books, Saving Your Bees: Natural Remedies for Your Hives and Elven Handbook - Volume 1: The Lost History of Earth. He can be contacted by post at PO Box 55, Quilcene, WA 98376, USA, and via email at endofprecession@aol. com. Readers can request the full-length version of this article from the author or view it at his website, http:/Avww.endofprecession.com. Endnotes 7. "The Earth's Orbit", Life in the Universe, plane", Nature 1984 Apr 19; 308:709-712 1. Gore, A., An Inconvenient Truth, Rode http://www. lifeinuniverse.org/noflash/Earthorbit- 12. Eden, D., "Scientists Now Know: We're Books, New York, 2006, p. 10 05-03-02.html Not From Here!", Viewzone, 2. Tompkins, P. and Bird, C., Secrets of the 8. Laskar, J., Joutel, F., Robutel, P., http://www. viewzone.com/milkyway.html Soil, Earthpulse Press, 1998, p. 179 "Stabilization of the Earth's obliquity by the This is a hot topic and I encourage the reader to 3. ibid. Moon", Nature 1993 Feb 18; 361 do further research. See coverage at 4. Schwartz, P. and Randall, D., "An Abrupt 9. Walker, G., Snowball Eath, Three Rivers http://www. virginia.edu/topnews/releases2003/ Climate Change Scenario and its Implications for Press, New York, 2003, p. 165; also see G. milky-sept-24-2003.html and the United States National Security", Global Williams and P. Schmidt, "Proterozoic equatorial ptt :// www.space.com/scienceastronomy/ Business Network, October 2003, available at glaciation: Has 'Snowball Earth’ a snowball's galaxy_gobble_030924.html. http://docbug.com/blog/supplemental/ chance?", The Australian Geologist 2000 Dec 31; The desperate rebuttal, Ty irs Gum Fema /Nnatthee 90/ climate-change. pdf . 7 Galaxy?", is at http://blogs.discovermagazine. 5. Muller, R.A., "Brief Introduction to the 10. Ward, P.D., Brownlee, D., Rare Eath: com/badastronomy/2007/06/27/is-the-sun-from- History of Climate", chapter | of R.A. Muller Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the andG.J. MacDonald, Ice Ages and Astronomical _ Universe, Copernicus Books, New York, 2000, Causes, Praxis Publishing Ltd, Chichester, UK, _ p. 178 . : 2000; available at http://www.muller Ib. 11. Rampino, MR., Stothers, R.B., eee ee gov/pages/IceA geBook/history_of_climate.html "Terrestrial mass extinctions, cometary impacts z ag eg AIT, Where astropaySicis 6. ibid. and the Sun's motion perpendicular to the galactic another-galaxy/. Then see some great pictures and animation of the Milky Way cannibalising 34 ¢ NEXUS www.nexusmagazine.com OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2008