After the, for me, welcome story I finished and published late last night, I read this this morning…
‘Scientists match Earth’s ice age cycles with orbital shifts’ – by University of California – Santa Barbara – Phys.org – Feb 27, 2025
This is actually quite a breakthrough of some importance and confirms to some extent both the basis and predictive qualities of my own interpretations of climate change. I am deeply grateful for this and not just a little proud and satisfied with my own small efforts to reach, through amateur sleuthing, very similar conclusions – though not on the same scientific basis. But I knew something was there, behind and informing the data.
I will use a few quotations from that story in my explanations below. But first a rebuke to the science (there will be more than one).
The authors of the piece presumably chose to use the image of four partially superimposed planets to illustrate the titular cycles of Earth ice-ages. Surely they are aware that the two rightmost orbs represent impossible statuses for planet Earth. Our planet has never been ice-covered to that extent – otherwise we would not be here now. How do I know that? It is on record that at no time in the past 500,000,000 years has our planet experienced average surface temperatures below around 10°C (also no average temperatures above around 30°C). What does that mean exactly? It means that our planet always operates, to all intents and purposes, within an envelope of some twenty degrees Celsius (between ten and thirty degrees) of global average temperature. It also means that during periods of ice-covered polar regions, stretching at extreme times deep into the more temperate areas with actual temperatures many times lower than the 10°C average over large parts of the Earth’s surface. And we also know there have been periods of no ice, even at the poles – which usually happens when average temperatures rise above around 21°C or the mid-range mark of the temperature envelope. At the low-points (extreme ice age conditions) there must have been large parts of the planet (the tropical and equatorial regions) where temperatures must have been many times higher than 10°C in order to give that overall ten degree average. Don’t forget that humanity, modern humans that is, originated during the current ice-age at a point where average temperatures began to rise and transition our world into the warm interglacial period we now enjoy, as expressed in the quote below. Our species would never have survived if north and central Africa, West Asia, India and other parts of southern Asia, and central and south America had been ice-covered at the time. A fact scientists tend to forget is that the Earth’s current average temperature (GMST) is currently down below 12°C (and has been for the last million years or so) continuing the overarching long-term planetary cooling period of at least the past some 50 million years. Also that we are still in the last ice-age (or one of its inter-glacial periods) and there are spots on Earth’s surface reaching over 50°C. Ok, my rebuke, since science should already know all this, ends here.
Beginning around 2.5 million years ago, Earth entered an era marked by successive ice ages and interglacial periods, emerging from the last glaciation around 11,700 years ago. A new analysis suggests the onset of the next ice age could be expected in 10,000 years’ time.
As I said earlier, I endorse the first part of the above quote, the second sentence not so much, and the main contention being the phrase ‘next ice age’. I cannot question the ‘10,000 years’ expectation because the team has not revealed the nature of the ‘predictable patterns’ they are seeing in the data, as mentioned in the next quote. I can say that we are about to enter another glacial period, based on my own work in studying past patterns already detected long before this report was issued, and if scientists want to refer to such events as ‘glacial ice ages’ then I would offer no objection to that. Because that is exactly what they are. The spreading of sea-ice to land areas (particularly in the northern hemisphere), reaching mountainous regions and forming glaciers in their valleys.
What is the significance of the ‘2.5 million years ago’ stated in that quote for the beginning of the succession of glacial and inter-glacial periods which have now been found to pose a ‘predictable pattern’ quality as expressed in the next quote below? Is there a known significance for that phenomena? Yes there is, and it is not clear if the scientists involved have recognised that. For some tens of millions of years, perhaps more than a hundred million years, prior to that 2.5 million, which brings our current age so clearly into focus as being of extreme importance (lucky for us), the planet was in extreme upheaval (perhaps the largest turnover in its entire history). From a single landmass we refer to as Pangea, vast continental size movements of land took place, shuffling themselves around, forming the poles and the continents we see today (which are still seeing micro-movements even now). That colossal reworking of the planet’s dry land areas ended, quite abruptly (in geological terms) some three million years ago with the joining of the Americas at the Isthmus of Panama and changing for ever – or the rest of the current age – the oceanic current flows around the new configuration, or conformation if you prefer, together with significant adjustments to global weather and climate effects. I think that settles the issue of new climate patterns emerging at that point in time.
One further point before we proceed, my own studies reveal that the next glacial period begins about now, like in this current decade (or some time fairly close – since I cannot state this with precision until the decade has ended), not, as claimed in the report, in around 10,000 years. This is detectable from the abrupt ending of a million Km2 of sea ice melt per decade over the Summers of the past two decades compared to the current average for the years of the current decade (still to be proven of course but growing stronger as each year rolls out its data). And of course that is only one metric which I am covering. But it is another argument that change is in the air.
“We found a predictable pattern over the past million years for the timing of when Earth’s climate changes between glacial ‘ice ages’ and mild warm periods like today, called interglacials,” said co-author Lorraine Lisiecki, a professor in UCSB’s Earth Science Department. … “We were amazed to find such a clear imprint of the different orbital parameters on the climate record,” added lead author Stephen Barker, a professor at Cardiff University, in the UK. “It is quite hard to believe that the pattern has not been seen before.”
As I said earlier, I cannot comment on the correlation of orbital parameters with these new understood partly climate driven patterns, now also understood to be affected by Earth’s known movements around its central star, requiring at least some basic understanding of the phenomena of Precession (known during very ancient times and long forgotten until recently). But I can confirm the patterns of heating and cooling in global temperatures which natural forces have produced during that time and which could only tentatively have been described as roughly 120,000 year cycles of unknown origin, covering ranges of temperatures of some 5-6°C (always operating between 10-16°C of global averages). I have been writing about that for many months now. Imagine how pleased I am now to see this additional confirmation of my thoughts – which are nothing out of the ordinary, these things having been known, in the public record, for many years now. But not of course conforming to the current climate dialog. Perhaps that will change now (the dialog, I mean).
And as for the remark that “It is quite hard to believe that the pattern has not been seen before,” well, it was not that hard for the underlying pattern to be seen and believed, if not clearly understood prior to this revelation. That basis has been there, and quite evident to the discerning eye, for many years now. The orbital correlation is new, and that might just be the trigger for much more important analysis work to emerge. I applaud the effort. Our modern world has lived under many false illusions, made possible only by want of proper discovery and analysis. New light is always welcome.
I wanted to say much more, but, as a blog post, this has gone on for almost long enough. I will quote a further four paragraphs I found to be remarkable, and may make a few ending notes on that.
The team was able to overcome this problem by looking at the shape of the climate record through time. This allowed them to identify how the different parameters fit together to produce the climate changes observed.
The authors found that each glaciation of the past 900,000 years follows a predictable pattern. This natural pattern—in the absence of human greenhouse gas emissions—suggests that we should currently be in the middle of a stable interglacial, and that the next ice age would begin many millennia in the future, approximately 10,000 years from now.
“The pattern we found is so reproducible that we were able to make an accurate prediction of when each interglacial period of the past million years or so would occur and how long each would last,” Barker said. “This is important because it confirms the natural climate change cycles we observe on Earth over tens of thousands of years are largely predictable and not random or chaotic.” These findings represent a major contribution towards a unified theory of glacial cycles.
“Now we know that climate is largely predictable over these long timescales, we can actually use past changes to inform us about what could happen in the future,” Barker added. “This is something we couldn’t do before with the level of confidence that our new analysis provides.”
In the following notes, as comment on the four paragraphs quoted above, the bolded texts are references from those paragraphs.
The idea of “looking at the shape of the climate record through time,” which is how I began my renewed climate adventure, and what turned me from a climate activist to a climate realist, has been available to all, for as long as the records have been there. It took me a while to find the right records to use, but having discovered them I have not deviated from what they related. And that record was in particular the three charts below. They represent, I believe, a firm basis of all you need to formulate your own picture on the climate position. Plus a little background understanding, of course.
First image covers a half billion years; second – 65 million; third – 5 million (top), 0.8 million (bottom). Each subsequent chart therefore covers a portion of the timeframe at the rightmost end of the previous chart. And that includes the two layers of the third chart, where the bottom row shows part of the most recent million years at right of the top row. That should be recognisable, and it is important to note, as it applies context to each of the charts through the increasing detail of the expanding timescales. I know of no better way to meaningfully illustrate Earth temperature climate conditions, as an indicator of weather conditions, and therefore of climate, through the most relevant periods of our planet’s history. And, without that recognition, no-one can properly understand anything to do with our climate.
These charts will expand on selection.
Next: “each glaciation of the past 900,000 years follows a predictable pattern.” This statement differs somewhat, if it represents the term of complete cycles, from the around 120,000 years I have been using since that is the approximate time between the last two major glaciations (Holocene and Eemian) while the one before that (Holsteinian) had some 270,000 years gap. Although there were a couple of minor cycles in between. That can be seen in the bottom chart of the third image above. I have only counted full glaciations as being where the standard low point (10°C) is reached as well as the high point of 15-16°C. I would dearly like to see the observations this team has found depicted in some visual way over a chart similar to that one at some stage, in order to fully understand what all this new information means in what they now term a “unified theory of glacial cycles”.
Next: The authors then ‘spoil the pudding’ again (I said there would be more than one rebuke) by referring to an “absence of human greenhouse gas emissions” which shows little understanding of atmospheric make up on their part. Human emissions play very little part in climate change. That, I think is indisputable, given the minuscule weight of CO2 ascribed to human emissions as compared to the total weight of the gas already in the atmosphere. A common mistake, surprisingly even among scientists – who should know better. On top of that, the content of the atmosphere does not change, and cannot change, more than marginally from day to day or year to year – and more especially not from human influence. That is a basic starting point of understanding. The CO2 content of the atmosphere is so small that even if it were to increase – even temporarily – by more than 4 times the current amount (an ideal concentration for the planet incidentally), it would still represent only around one tenth of one percent of atmospheric gases. Gases which are constantly being taken up, used up, reassigned, but always retained only in the amounts which constitute the formula of air we breathe. If that were not so, we would all have died off by now as a species alien to the planet – which is where we were headed before CO2 began to gradually rise in recent times. Haven’t you noticed the planet is greening once more? That is all down to increased CO2.
None of this is of any use to you or I, of course. We do not have ten thousand years, or even a hundred years to wait for climate predictions to prove themselves. It may not be all that useful to future generations for the same reasons. But it can be useful to all of us if we can persuade ourselves that there is no point or benefit in thinking about climate change at all. Instead we should concentrate, and not too heavily, on matters of weather, something which can dramatically effect our plans – for tomorrow and for life – before we actually reach the point of being killed by our own unfortunately mistaken climate adjustment initiatives.
Meanwhile, until we are all convinced of that, to the point of not doing or thinking anything related to climate, I will continue to do what I can – for as long as I can – to repeat and strengthen these warnings.
Not Something Else 
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