I've had to break "this" Ice Cores, & the 800-year lag,& water vapor posting into four pieces to get it to fit.

I've had to break "this" Ice Cores, & the 800-year lag,& water vapor posting into four pieces to get it to fit.

Xomba, according to Nick, has no set size limits for a posting until you exceed the "unknown" limit. Then the posting vanishes. You can still edit, but not preview or display.

Nick can believe whatever he will, it's his website. Still, there is a limit to size. . .

By making it smaller, it works. This is part "three" of four parts. Read on below immediately, or jump to the sections below.

4 Billion yrs at 30,000 yrs/sec: A creative effort. (revised 9-08-07 and 3- 31-09)
Views of the continents during last 650 million years.

======
Questions about suggestions Business-owned Governments have made . . .

On March 18, 2009 -- The Tale of Two Studies made clear the climate change task difficulty.

Can the Businesses and Governments they "own" actually protect the planet's life? Hint: "No."

1. One study, from http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/C-ROADS asked:
"What would we have for the world's climate if every country were to implement its favorite proposition for cutting greenhouse gas emmisions? Brazil will halt deforestation of the tropical rain forest by 2050. President Obama pledges to cut 80% below 1990 emissions by 2050, as well as the EU really getting serious and like the US, reduces emissions 80% below 1990 by 2050. What if Mexico drops 10% below 2004 by 2014, and China continues decreasing its emissions "intensity" and so on?"

That is a heck of an idea! Ask what your Business and Bank-owned Government will do to save the future for your children? Well, profits and the economy have to come "first" for the Bank that is the Federal Reserve. Their jobs are to preserve the "system of profits," the "somethings" for "nothing" but time and the unlimited population growth provides for their transgenerational "Ponzi Scheme." Yeah. This is about "exploitational development" for the profits of the few, not the many. If the nations on the planet and the multinational banks and businesses that own them had their way, what CO2 climate would we have? [Will they have their way?]

You, gentle reader, can actually plug in the values and try to keep from slowly, inexorably, over cooking the Earth!

http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/C-ROADS

Climate Rapid Overview and Decision-support Simulator
C-ROaDS

Plug in the values and see what results.

Answer 1.
"Current emissions reductions proposals in the lead-up to [Copenhagen] COP-15 are likely to be insufficient to stabilize atmospheric CO2 levels: Using C-ROADS -- a simple computer simulation of climate change -- to support long-term climate policy development."--- Elizabeth Sawin, et al.

Here is one version of the simulation, straight forward and frightening.

I call it the "Climate Game," and it is reminiscent of the Buckmister Fuller inspired "world gane" of the late 1960's -- but better!

http://www.seed.slb.com/subcontent.aspx?id=4120

Click on the simulations at the above link and see how well you can do. Planetary and human survival are in the offing.

==
2. The Elicitation of Experts

This is from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and is NOT open-source, but the abstract is free.
www.pnas.org

Imprecise probability assessment of tipping points in the climate system

Elmar Kriegler, Jim W. Hall, Hermann Held, Richard Dawson, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber [edited by William C Clark, Harvard, approved 2 Feb 2009]

Abstract

"Major restructuring of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, the Amazon rainforest and ENSO, are a source of concern for climate policy. We have elicited subjective probability intervals for the occurrence of such major changes under global warming from 43 scientists. Although the expert estimates highlight large uncertainty, they allocate significant probability to some of the events listed above. We deduce conservative lower bounds for the probability of triggering at least 1 of those events of 0.16 for medium (2–4 °C), and 0.56 for high global mean temperature change (above 4 °C) relative to year 2000 levels."

This does not bode well for our futures. Maybe some "strong prayer" to the appropriate diety could adjust things? The Deity of Greed, or the God of Profit? I doubt it.

At least with climate, we can see it coming, and we can hang them that caused it ahead of time, or fix it. The Dinosaurs did not have it so. They had less warning than we for their extinction.

Some catastrophes you can avoid, some you can't.

Hopefully, humankind will still exist to mitigate the "future impacts" the Earth just orbiting the Sun, obeying God's Laws of Physics -- has in store. Every hundred million years or so...it can be an extremely bad day . . .

THAT DAY, when most DINOSAURS DIED . . . was such a day, and it was Thursday afternoon. . .

It was a "bummer"-for-dinosaur's-kind-of-day. Early it had been a clear day, it even warmed in a cool Cretaceous morning-kind of way, then was followed by a lightly-breezed Arizona afternoon, working its way to hot. This is a map of the way the world looked "then," on that day. . .

Image Credit: Plate tectonic maps and Continental drift animations by C. R. Scotese,www.scotese.com
PALEOMAP Project.(full color paleogeographic maps)

News Flash: Today at 5:52 pm EDT an asteroid about 8.8 miles in diameter impacted the Western Atlantic Ocean north of the vicinity of the South Caribbean Subduction Zone, in deep water (up to 2000 meters deep) off the north edge of the Yucatan Shelf. The initial impact excavated 432,000 km3 of material, some of which, 100,000 km3, reached high enough velocities to obtain sub-orbital trajectories -- meaning that some of the ejected materials "burned' their way "up" through the atmosphere traversed horizontally near earth orbital space -- then "burned" their way "down" into and through the atmosphere more than halfway around the planet. Large materials ejected from the crater were still raining down into the atmosphere for most of an hour after the impact. Dust and small particles took longer, some lasted 10 years floating in the stratosphere. In this process, 30 million megatons of energy were transferred to the air.. . the bad luck of it all, was that the impact site had a sulfur dome that was largely vaporized and lofted in vapor form, in some cases with the fireball plume nearly 100 miles. . . . Acid rain, sulfate aerosols cooled the planet, shut down photosynthesis for most of a decade. . .

http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/EarthCollisions.html

The dinosaurs probably did not have a scheme to protect themselves from things falling from the sky. Would impact and "quick roasting" be a better death than a protracted slow cooking?

===============

Recent Ice.

Left image, Ice 21KBP------------------ Right image, Ice present time

Images: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/paleo/peltice.pl

Visit the link above and you can change the view and view the data applied to a rough base graphic. You can apply the data for the years before present (BP) as you chose and scale the graphics according to your display preferences. The data are historical. For example, England was covered with ice 21ky BP, but clear of ice by about 11ky BP, where as 11ky BP remnants of the ice sheet still covered the most of Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Finland) More than half of northern Canada was also still in the grip of thick ice, and all of Greenland.

One thing the graphics hint: We humans "matured" as a species -- in the cold.

Credits:CONTRIBUTOR: Prof W.R. Peltier, Dept of Physics, University of Toronto
IGBP PAGES/WDCA Data Contribution Series #: 93-015
ORIGINAL REFERENCE:
Peltier, W. R., Ice Age Paleotopography, 1994, Science, v. 265, pp. 195-201.

SUGGESTED DATA CITATION:
Peltier, W., 1993, Time Dependent Topography Through Glacial Cycle. IGBP PAGES/World Data
Center-A for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series # 93-015. NOAA/NGDC
Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.

NAME OF DATA SET: Time Dependent Topography Through the Glacial Cycle
LAST UPDATE: May 1993 (Receipt by WDC-A)
GEOGRAPHIC REGION: Global
PERIOD OF RECORD: 0-21,000 YBP

Temperature changes we know about.

Image: NOAA Temperature change in blue. CO2 change in red. Via dueterium.

Image: NOAA, NCDC, Petit, et al., 1999

Stretching back in time. . .dendochronology. Getting solid data.
Image: NOAA, NCDC

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

4 Billion years at 30,000 years a second

A MOVIE 4 BILLION YEARS IN LENGTH: Earth Time!

Look for announcements in your area!

The following is a "creative effort"--the purpose of which is to introduce you, the reader, to the immensity of Earth Time.

Imagine. That once, every thousand years, orbital camera devices, long ago stationed at a protected base hidden on Earth's Moon, launch their cameras to particular locations above and upon and around the planet Earth. They record images, move to another point, record the temperature, sample fluids, ambient radiation. They record more images. They also record the insolation at the surface, the conditions of the Sun, they taste and sniff the gaseous chemistry of the air, and return to the safety of their Moonbase home. Yeah. Imagine!

Say four billion years back. . . . "Someone" came by, some Visitor; smelled around all the Sun's planets; detected two which held a few faint whiffs of life, and reported to Galactic Census that it was going to leave two standard recording packages, each consisting of the standard allotment of 11 gravitationally stabilized vacuum-energy assisted and powered autonomous imaging and analysis units, with current (Version 20714.23.14) software and memory. One package is directed to the third planet's moon, the other to a satellite of the fifth planet. Then the Visitor leaves. Imagine. . !

Well, you, one of the fine Writers or Readers associated with www.Xomba.com "find" one of the cameras while it is visiting for a millennial picture series . . . let's say it happens like this:

Your wife, Patricia, is at her job. It is a Real Job that pays Real Money!

You are at your writing job! (Is that a real job? Writing?)

Your writing is not paying any bills. At all. Yet . . .

And "Yet" is getting longer.

You are working on your novel. You need a break -- for the third time this morning. This time, you take the binoculars outside with you for your morning break. Maybe you will see a few migratory birds, birds of spring, heading north.

With the binocular strap around your neck, you glance skyward to see a flash of the bright white under wing feathers of a high altitude circling flock, probably a squadron or flight of north-bound Canadian Geese.

Settling into the backyard recliner your wife uses to catch a few weak sun tans, you direct your binoculars upward, toward the geese. You listen and you can hear them honking, clucking, chattering, a regular airborne cacophony. From the sounds the geese are making, they are sure addressing something! As you focus the binoculars, you see the geese are circling another bird or something; one of their own maybe. But the strange bird-something is absolutely stationary in the air, just a dark colored spot. You think, no; birds don't float in air. May be it is a dark-colored balloon, free and ascending? But then, it moves. It grows. It is getting larger. It is getting closer!

It no longer looks like a bird, or a balloon. It looks like a dark-colored boxy thing. It is growing in size as you gaze; it is definitely descending -- toward you! As you watch it grows bigger and bigger. It is definitely approaching you. You lower the binoculars from your eyes, gaze directly at the approaching object.

About four feet above ground, and 20 feet away, beyond your feet, it stops and remains vertically fixed, except it turns a large camera lens toward you and locks on you and. . . probably takes your picture.

You are quickly out of the recliner; you are standing.

The object floats in air. It is about 18-inches wide at its widest, roughly a foot high, and less than three feet long. It's color is a blue-grayish; it is flat on the bottom, could rest solidly on a table or on level ground. It is silent.

Slowly, floating, it approaches you, stops about 5 feet away, turns side ways to you, drifts a little closer, slowly stops at a little more than arm's length from you. You see on its upper surface, plainly a protruding reddish toggle switch, similar to the ones you have used on your electronics and power projects, the kind you get at Radio Shack; and the whole object is hanging there, waiting, like offering you. . .the toggle switch . . . the LED is "on" . . . You behave like a curious primate. . . you reach out,

Image: Radio Shack, Model: 275-014
Catalog #: 275-014- $3.99

Minutes later, you are on the phone to Ralph, the only guy you know well enough to call at NASA, Goddard.

He's a neighbor two doors down the street. He is one brainy scientist out at Goddard where he has his own lab, and shop. And he designs and builds imaging equipment and then uses the stuff he builds to do science, prototypes satellite packages, solar system probes . . .Jerry, your 11-year old, and Johnny, Ralph's 11-year old, are friends.

"Yeah", you say, explaining it to Ralph, "It was floating a few feet off the ground, like four feet. And it has a big lens. It is obviously a camera. And it floated over to me. Yeah. Floated! It floated! No. I don't know what was holding it up. It turned sideways to me and floated really close, and I noticed a toggle-looking switch on it. Yes. A toggle switch. A large reddish-colored toggle switch; looked just like those reddish toggles for up to 20 amps I've gotten at Radio Shack. So I toggled it. I couldn't help it . . .then the box, camera and all, settled gently to the ground. . . .so after a few minutes of it sitting there, I picked it up and I brought it into my kitchen table, near the back door. It's sitting on the table. Right now. . ."

You are using the kitchen wall phone. You can reach over and touch the Box. The lens on the 'camera' is at least 7 inches across. You can't see a shutter behind it but there must be one.

"Oh, sure," You are saying. "I'm not making this up, Ralph. Look, why don't you and some of the people you work with come on over to my kitchen and I'll show you. . . The lens on the camera is at least 7 inches in diameter and that in itself is worth seeing. Looking into it is like looking into what I imagine a black hole looks like -- except there is the faintest reflection, so it is not a mounted 'black hole." I am not joking! Yes. Now. Come on over. I'll order a pizza. Bring two people and I'll get two pizzas. Of course. I think it is an alien device, the way it was floating in space like that . . . at least something you'd be interested in . . ."

The two pizza's show up at about the same time Ralph and two other people arrive. A man and a woman, climb out of Ralph's family wagon parked in the drive way in front of your garage.

In the kitchen, with the device on the table in front of them, you meet Dr. Daniel Tanaka and Dr. Janice Furloug. Daniel is looking over the object on your table. Janice is too. Your neighbor Ralph is shaking his head, "Wow, Mike! How much does it weigh?"

"When I carried it in it felt like no more than 50 lbs."You say, thankful, at least Ralph wasn't going to disbelieve what was on the table.

Janice Furlong, catches your eye, "It may have gotten heavier; it looks like your table is cracking, it is a lot more than 50 lbs."

She is right! You can hear the table creaking.

"Can four of us pick it up?" Ralph asks.

All four of you can't pick it up.

When you discover that, the kitchen table creaks very loudly once more. The toggle. You reach out to the device and flip the switch. Almost immediately, the device rises a few inches off the table. It floats!

Your friend Ralph looks you right in the eye. You can see you've perked his interest. His eyes are wide open. He says, "Yeah, Mike, we're interested."

You watch as the camera device turns toward Ralph. Ralph fishes in his shirt pocket, pulls out his cell phone, flips it open. Before Ralph can punch a button or turn the phone camera "on," you all see it. An electrical spark sizzling in the air reaches from the device to the phone in Ralph's hand. The phone "pops" and a tendril of smoke rises from it's ear speaker hole. Ralph's phone clearly no longer works. Smoke from a cell phone is not a good thing. Ralph folds his cell phone, places it on your kitchen table.

There is a moment of silence. Ralph is obviously and certainly okay.

Ralph asks, "Janice, can I borrow your phone?"

Janice Furlong is really quick. "No! I like my phone, it's Me! I've got it programmed . . ."

Ralph looks at Dan Tanaka, and Dan is shaking his head. He says, "Maybe the land line?"

Dan points at your kitchen's cordless wall phone.

"No, Ralph," You say. "Both Patricia and I like that phone. . ."

But Ralph is reaching toward the wall phone, the one you called him on. The spark emanates from some point above the device's lens, reaches instantly toward the wall phone and Ralph's hand. It hangs there sizzling, dancing a little. You think of Darth Vader's Light Saber. Ralph pulls his hand away from the phone. The spark vanishes. There is an acrid trace of ozone smell. No more than if an electrical spark four feet long had arced in the air. At least the wall phone hasn't been fried.

You instantly recall Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's masterful "2001:a Space Odyssey," and the scientists getting their picture taken in front of the Monolith, the one by four by nine thing buried on the Moon, touched by sunlight for the first time in several million years. . . it screamed a message, and you halfway expect some kind of electronic shreik to be emitted . . . May be it has been?

Janice Furlong says, "I wonder what it wants . . ."

The device turns toward her, then moves toward the living room, and turns into your den. It is drawn toward your computer, your internet connection.

Because of wage-earner Patricia, you have a world class OC-192 (STM-64x) connection, basically 10 gigabit/second, or as Patricia tells you 9953.28 Mbits/second with an actual payload of 9621.504 Mbit/second, and an overhead of 331.776 Mbit/second. Optical, dedicated.

You have this, thanks to Patricia's employer. Patty's taken her laptop, but the optical cable she plugs into is there. You pick it up. The alien device smoothly moves toward you, turns around and a round hole, larger than the plug you are holding, appears in the end opposite the lens.

You can't help it. There is no plug as such. You just stick the end into the hole, and something grabs it. You notice your novel file saves and closes on your laptop. The screen blanks, darkens. Then it looks like Windos starts to come up. . .

Ralph asks, "This goes to Patty's employer, Cabletronics?"

Full duplex. Yes. It is connected. To the world.

You say, "Yes, Ralph, this is connected to the whole world's backbone."

In a few seconds your laptop is reloading Windos, but faster, with things flashing on the screen, segments of code, chunks of flashing code pages; and everything is loading fast, and things flash on the screen at incredible speed. . . .most of it looks like some kind of negotiating; like when your fax program hooks up. . .

Then, as you knew likely, Windos "crashes," the screen freezes; a message comes on screen "OS failure". . . . the laptop screen goes black.

Patty's switch box lights are all lit, flickering brightly. . .it is ON the Internet! The screen on the lap top comes back on . . . it seems . . . it does! It likes . . . Linex. . .it loads Linex. It has learned or is learning our languages. Mandarin, English, Russian, French, German. . .and a list of about 40 languages appears on screen . . . languages you never even heard of. . .Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi. . .

http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/worldlanguages.htm

"Select one." appears on the screen.

Your laptop computer is waiting for you to choose. . .

With the wireless mouse, you choose. . . .English. . . .

Images... Data.. Tables....Graphs... pie charts, an incredible scale of information; flashing as fast as your laptop screen refresh rates allow. Then the your laptop screen blanks to black. A message comes on the screen.

Big letters appear on the laptop screen. Everyone is watching the laptop screen.

Hello. We are activating your audio output devices, your speakers, NOW. "Can you hear and understand me?"

You say, "Yes. We hear and understand you."

"Excellent!" The voice sounds like John Kennedy's voice, very Massachusetts, "I am a machine. I was left here to observe this planet with other devices like me. Our interactions with you are mathematically improbable, so we are fortunate to have encountered you on this segment of our study mission." the voice paused.

"It's using John Kennedy's voice." Daniel Tanaka says.

The Kennedy voice . . . well timed, well delivered, continues, "You are acting somewhat intelligently and it is possible you are intelligent, indeed. Intelligence detection and recognition is an important part of our programmed mission. We are to await, and report the evolution and development of intelligences on likely planets of stable stars. I am gathering data through this network connection. I have modified the software of your network server at another location -- to allow higher rates of data transfer. I have reached the limitations in the hardware of this switching device. I am studying your recorded history, gathering your digitally recorded information. This information will be transmitted to Galactic Census, and analyzed. Final determinations of your intelligence will be made by them.

"Do you have questions? Intelligence is often predicated on the nature of questions you might ask. Ask me, and if I can answer the question, I will. Realize that my basic programming is 4 billion years old, and that my latest partial memory update is 42,000 years old . . ."

Janice Furlong spoke out, "Where do you come from? I'm inquiring as to your origins."

The voice now emanated from the stereo speakers associated with your (Well, Patty's) new wide screen High Definition television digital display toward the end of the den used to watch TV or video and where Patty held interactive electronic meetings. . .

"We were constructed on your Moon out of materials obtained there, by a Galactic Census Agent, a very powerful entity. A Galactic Census Agent is capable of directing the awesome energies needed to alter both stars and planets, as well as atoms and molecules.

Image: NASA

"The Census Agent built a storage place to secure our longevity upon your Moon."

"The Agent who constructed and established our mission here was a machine version of a once living organic being who chose mechanical investiture to explore environments that would be closed to him as an organic entity. His sensors indicated that seeding of this system had been accomplished several hundred million years prior to his arrival and that this planet had a good chance of developing complex life, and eventually, intelligent life.

"He reported this to Galactic Census, and left me and four others like me to monitor this world. Six others like me are in storage in the event we operatives are damaged. We have a 4 billion-year long record we are providing you in digital file form with very large quantities of measurements made during our periodic visits to close orbit and to the surface. These survey visits are scheduled to occur once every 1000 years, and last at most one planetary rotation period, which we know you have measured to be slowing.

During this rotation period, four machines, identical to me, have been visiting with others of your species on neighboring and distant continents.

"Three copies of our 4 billion-year-long data records have been made and I am in the process of making the final copy I will leave here upon conclusion of this visit. Even an abbreviated form of these records would consume one forth of your world's current storage capacity, so we made a full copy of the record we have accumulated in some cubical storage devices for which we have devised software interfaces to your current technology, what you call 'plug and play'. I am currently loading the final cube with data.

"Why isn't this copy the 'fifth' copy?" Janice Furlong asked. Very quick. "There are four others, but only three copies made, why not "four," and yours would make five . . .?"

"Yes." The Kennedy voice responded, almost the effect of a gentle laugh. "Perceptive. Very good question . . . Please observe . . ."

The big screen lit up and a familiar image came upon the screen. It was an early evening scene.

Kennedy's voice, "Your data tells me this is a "Mosque" . . . one of my kind, another probe, encountered resistance, at a structure like this one. The probe was not damaged. But many of your species were injured by . . . "pause. "ricochets of gunfire directed at the probe. Further contact was not attempted in that part of this world, since many of these kinds of structures exist."

Dan Tanaka said, "We have several bad memes in our species. That is one of them . . ."

"Intriguing," the Kennedy voice said. "Because I was going to contact someone in the area of Washington," A picture of the Capitol building was displayed on the big high definition screen. "I was receiving information from the probe that was attacked. I was not observed visually, that I know of, but intensive microwave radiation was directed at me from the vicinity of Washington. I changed my shape to reduce reflection, but one of your sensor unit's became persistent. I have since learned that it was attempting to 'paint' me for targeting. Many could have been injured . . . Tell me, Daniel Tanaka, does that bad meme exist here, too . . ?"

Daniel Tanaka had been chuckling, but now burst out laughing. "Yes. You were quite right to come away from Washington. There is no intelligent life there. . . "

Kennedy voice. "Of the five probes to interact with you, I think I, among them, am beginning to understand what you call, ironic humor."

"We probably have many bad memes, " Dan Tanaka says.

"Probably, "The Kennedy voice responds.

Janice Furlong speaks out again, "Where did life on Earth come from? I'm inquiring as to our origins, since you mentioned that the Galactic Agent detected Earth to have been seeded several hundred million years before he assembled you. Who were the Seeders? "

"A very good question. To clarify; Galactic Census does not know who the "Seeders" were. They are no longer in this galaxy, however. They long preceded the evolution and arrival of Galactic Census and vanished billions of years before this planet was formed. But throughout this galaxy they have scattered intelligent devices that seed worlds appropriately. Galactic Census believes the seeders evolved in this galaxy, and seeded even the worlds all the Census Members evolved upon. The only traces of themselves, of the Seeders, detected - - are like you and the ancestors of even the Census Agent. They left vast numbers of biological entities scattered across the galaxy; but themselves are no longer here. We have not encountered their home world if they had one. They are gone; they have vanished. There are many things even Galactic Census does not know."

Ralph spoke then, "What is your power source, and how do you levitate; how do you float?"

The Kennedy voice responds, "Our power source is what you call the Vacuum. That is used to modulate gravitation. Your science, seems to dance around the formulation. The specifics of the equations is one of the prohibited knowledges. The question you ask hints at your level of intelligence. I am not allowed to answer specifically how one may extract and use Vacuum energy. From the data in your records, there is clear indication that some of you grasp the concepts. From Galactic Census memories I have within me, the estimated time between your current stage of possible intelligence and use of the Vacuum energies is about 1500 of your years, . . . if you survive that long."

"And this leads me to something I must mention, though, since my time here is short. You need to get the amount of carbon in your air reduced. The sooner the better. You seriously constrain your maturation potential if you follow this destructive course, where there is wanton disregard for other species or for others of your own kind. Cooperative social effort will contribute to your species survival in any case. Strong individuals are still wanted in social leadership roles when at your stage. But you need to have socially responsible leaders. Since carbon and water are such important life factors, Galactic Census knows a great deal about this maturation process."

As you watch the alien device, a large hatch opens where you had inserted the cable. Your wife's 10Gbit plug is revealed to be inserted into a clear crystalline cube a little over 5 inches on a side. The cube, trailing your wife's optical Internet cable, floats out of the alien device into the air and right about catch height. You reach for the cube with your wife's Internet connection wire in it and grasp it. It gets heavier as you hold it. The alien device's hatch closes, its blue-grayish appearance returns.

The Kennedy voice addresses you. "Mr. Porlius, what you are holding is atomically doped diamond, made right out of the air in your backyard and house as we waited for your friend, Ralph, and his colleagues to arrive. My surface covering has been absorbing carbon from your atmosphere since we arrived for this visit. The cube is a digital storage device, a digital memory device, which contains 3.61837x10^12 factorial bytes of storage space. The device is 87% full of data. This data is hard-coded into the diamond memory matrix device, and an interface for your Linex operating system with instructions for other operating systems access is also included and indexed." The Kennedy voice pauses then resumes.

"Into this storage device, I have recorded the entire 4 billion-year record of your planet that we observers have made. The depth of data recorded for each millennial observational visit will likely be explored by your species in the coming years. To aid in this, I have created viewing and analysis software and you can sequence the scenes forward or backwards in time at rates you choose; the first menu I suggest you explore is on screen. I have established a URL for it on your Internet network, researched your guests and sent to each of your visitors an e-mail with all the address and connection details. While the cube is connected to the Internet, it will be accessible. The cube can be disconnected and transported, but will need to plug into the same connection protocol to function. Your species will learn how to download it eventually but it requires more storage than you have accessible or will have for the next hundred years at your current digital memory expansion rate. I suggest you leave the cube connected and online. I synthesized your voice and sent a message to ask your wife, Patty, to obtain another cable for her switch box, and bring it home. . . . "

"Mr Porlius, if you will open a door or window I will not damage it by penetrating it -- and will be on my way. It has been a pleasure. May probability return you what you desire."

Once outside the alien device vanished, straight up.

===============
OK. You probably have this whole story figured out by now, don't you?
==============

In fact, if you are a Creative Writer, you can imagine all sorts of data beside images collected, the data depth collected. There would be atmospheric composition, the "aroma", the temperature, air speed, insolation . . . even ambient sounds from the past recorded, and reproducible -- maybe the bellowing of the dinosaurs, perhaps the buzz of Carboniferous Insecta and those huge Dragonflies. . . vast quantities of additional data beyond some single mere images a thousand years apart. . . indeed, for the rotational period, a continuous stream of images and data from each visiting probe. For a geologist, to whom even a thousand years is but an instant, the data recorded would make an interesting sequence of images to study the evolution and development of Earth and its structures. Imagine the film, imagine the movie this would make!

==============

The doped diamond storage unit with Patty's optical fiber cable plugged into it acts just like a "drive" when you see it in the Linex-that-looks-like-Windos-but-works-interface. You want to get an idea of how much data is locked into the data cube. Obviously some good software was telling you some thing incredible, the numbers had lost meaning. 87% of 3,618,370,000,000!(factorial) is a number larger than any device on Earth was capable of accurately computing. If the possible memory states of the human brain were 13 Billion factorial divided by 100 million Factorial -- that is still a lot of potential memory. Minuscule, however compared to the diamond cube.

Yes, when you and your visitors decide to screen the digital version, you set the frames - per-second at 30, and start in watching it at 30,000 years a second. 30 frames a second = 30,000 years/second.

Ralph says, "Mike, there are some folks visiting NASA today that I'd like to call and have them come by here to see this. Yes, I know it should be accessible online, but this is the first time and these fellows are from USGS, Menlo and Denver, and also University of Utah. . . can I use your phone to invite them?"
-
Eventually, as you and Ralph run short sequences of images, learning how to use the data display interface, four more scientists arrive. After a brief and skeptically received explanation the men and women Ralph had invited settled in to your den and began watching the big screen with you. . .

It took less than a minute to quiet the skepticism.

At 30,000 years a second, in one minute you see what took place 1.8 million years ago! My how time just flies! Publius mentioned 40 million years in one of his posts about glaciation or something, and you have to watch for 22 minutes and 13 seconds to get there -- so the connection to current climate is tenuous, or just historical.

In one hour, you are seeing things at 30,000 years per second that occurred 108,000,000 years ago. You pause the presentation and get popcorn, (order more pizza) stop by the bathroom, come back and resume. It will take a total of 9 hours 15 minutes 33 seconds to see a billion years into the past at 30,000 years a second.

==============Interjection================

It will take 37 hours to watch the 4 billion years recorded -- at a rate of 30,000 years a second; and still there are 567,000,000 years un-recorded, another 5 hours 15 minutes at 30,000 years a second.

If I could get hold of THAT movie, that initial 567,000,000 years -- we would have a lot of attendees interested in screening it. That would be a time when you would want the records to be displayed much slower than 30,000 years a second! Even though it would be unlikely to see the impact that formed the Moon, with 1000 years resolution, the formation of the Moon in the Earth's first 20 million years or so would be a real hit, a scientifically critical success! Of course, the Moon Base where the Galactic Census Agent had stored the probes would not exist so your camera storage would have to be some safe place -- indeed, the Moon's existence began more than 500 million years before the Census Agent wandered by. . .

The point? Those ice ages in the past 2 million years, the 60 advances and retreats, were probably little steps forward and little steps back. most of them like thermal oscillations, bounced by the oceans thermal content and planetary thermal balancing of gross insolation and thermal re-radiation, attempting to achieve an honest equilibrium with a variety of dynamic variables, beneath a nearly constant star.

From that perspective, we are still in the advancing and retreating state, and it looks like we may be forcing a great ice retreat, at least for a while. If we humans can get our act together we can preserve species, protect the planet, and specify the climate, holding enough CO2 in the air to prevent both too much heating and too much cooling. Climate Control.

========================
More story Stuff:

Wife and money-earner, Patricia, returns home:

Patricia comes home to find that her husband, Mike, apparently had a few guests over ...

-------------- A characterization of Patricia's viewpoint. . .

When you come home you see five vehicles parked on the street that you know must be visitors to your house.

What is Mike doing? You recognize neighbor Ralph's wagon. But no one else's vehicle. Two have Government "GSA" license plates. What is going on?

Neighbor Ralph left you enough room to park next to him, but not enough room to wiggle your old Beamer into the garage. You clicked open the garage roll-up door, anyway. Mike's old Fiero is there.

What is going on? You brought the new optical internet cable the message from Mike said to bring home. When you enter the garage and close the garage door, you open the door to the utility nook near the kitchen, and enter the kitchen and you see a stack of open pizza boxes.

There are murmurs coming from the den. When you get to the den's door way, you see it is full of people some sprawled on the thick pile rug, some cross-legged, some perched on the coffee table and everyone is raptly watching the HDTV screen, some kind of video it looks like.

This kind of stuff happens in California, not in Maryland.

It looks like some kind of science fiction movie or video. Some planet you never imagined is on screen, flickering, changing. The main image is of a strange watery looking planet with white clouds and spiral storms that fills a half of the HDTV screen and then there are four smaller picture windows, and four more in a line. All of them are animated. Across the top in large type numbers is a something that looks like a government budget number. . .502,740,000, but it keeps changing, increasing, like the National Debt clocks or the Population clocks you have seen. . .But it says "years". . .

Suddenly the image freezes on the screen. Husband Mike has seen you, and has stopped the movie images.

"Hi, Honey! I'm sorry! I just got wrapped up in this and failed to call you.. . ." He stretches as he walks to you for a quick kiss and embrace. "The kids are at Ralph's."

Nine men and women you don't know, stand. They stretch. Both men and women. You know only Ralph. If this is a party what kind of party is it? A very quiet party? No music with the video you heard.

"Well everyone, This is my lovely wife, Patricia, or as most call her "Pat", and Honey, these people are from NASA Goddard where Ralph works, or from other NASA centers visiting Goddard for meetings and such, and these folks are from USGS and the University of Utah . . . and we have been watching this, uh, this video for several hours. . . "

"Whose video is it?" You ask, looking at the strange world orb frozen on screen.

Mike says. "It is ours. It is a video of Earth's history. . . right now on the screen what we are seeing is what Earth looked like 502 million, 968 thousand years ago. It is a kind of documentary..."

Documentary? You think; "half-a-billion" years ago?

You say. "That's nice. Where did it come from. . .? Who made it up. . ? That is quality image modeling . . . What do you mean by "kind of documentary?"

"Pat, " Ralph says, "These are real images of Earth, a history, recorded over half a billion years ago." There were murmurs of ascent from the others in the room, and thoughtful nods.

Mike says, "And another thing. . ." He is looking at the optical cable in your hand. "Honey, that voice asking you to bring home another optical cable wasn't my real voice on the phone, even if it sounded like it was me . . . It was my voice imitated by a 4-billion-year-old alien machine-intelligence who stopped by here just a little before lunch. . . . and sent you the message in "my voice." Mike paused. "And left us a record of Earth's last 4 Billion years..."

You say, "Alien, huh? Are you sure you are my husband?" People you haven't met laugh at your joke. "Some kind of alien machine-intelligence?" You say. "History of the Earth? That was nice of him, or her, or it. . . Look. I can order out if any one is hungry, say take a 30-minute break, or an hour. Fix some drinks, get some good chairs moved in here. . . you shouldn't make people sit on the floor. . ."

Mike says, "Sorry, Honey. We just all got wrapped up in this. . ."

------------------------

Some Views of the Continents 650Mya to present by C. R. Scotese

My reason for including the above "fictional" effort, was to "set the reader up" for the following section of graphics created by Christopher Scotese. I wanted to help readers grasp the immensity of earth-time, along with the powerful underlying forces of geological processes that help renew, refurbish, and change our planet through time. Within this shaping of the planet by the geologic tectonic movements of the lightweight and light density continents, there is the long, long thread of life which winds continuously from the far distant past to the present showing in that thread, life's evolutionary resilience.

You have in your genes information patterns that actively existed in our ancestral heritage and which now present a portion of the continuous thread of life extending billions of years into the past. I felt that maybe a better understanding of our current climate changing milieu can be garnered by broadening and hopefully extending the view to a grander scale.

Earth and Sun have revolved around the Milky Way Galaxy's center of mass perhaps 18 times, some 18 Cosmic Years, since the occurrence of the Supernova explosion 4.567 billion years ago which led to the Sun and planet's formation.

Since that time, life on Earth has existed for some 3.8 billion years, and finally, in the last few hundred years, the "form" we have become is nearly an "infection," deadly to the rest of the life with which we share this planet.

The link to the website below might be able to put some of this in perspective now. From the record--that is, from those fossils of life writ into the very rocks of Earth -- it becomes obvious that life's thread extends past that time this oldest image represents, farther into the past, fully more than 3.2 billion years. There is a vast amount of time we do not yet know about; many times greater in extent than that which we can depict and characterize.

-
http://www2.nature.nps.gov/geology/USGSNPS/gtime/gtime2.html

For those of you who saw the re-post I changed the order, instead of going back in time like Mike and Ralph
we go forward as we descend here ending at the present.

CREDIT (full color paleogeographic maps)
Scotese, C. R., 2001. Atlas of Earth History, Volume 1, Paleogeography,
PALEOMAP Project, Arlington, Texas, 52 pp.
or (any material that appears on the PALEOMAP website (www.scotese.com)
Scotese, C.R., 2002, http://www.scotese.com, (PALEOMAP website).

-
Now if things go on. . . .Looking ahead in time.

-

-

CREDIT and More:
All full color paleogeographic maps above. . .
Scotese, C. R., 2001. Atlas of Earth History, Volume 1, Paleogeography,
PALEOMAP Project, Arlington, Texas, 52 pp.
or (any material that appears on the PALEOMAP website (www.scotese.com)
Scotese, C.R., 2002, http://www.scotese.com, (PALEOMAP website).

or (any computer animations)
Scotese, C.R., 2001, Computer Animations on CD-ROM, PALEOMAP Project,
Arlington, Texas.

See image author and owner Cristopher R. Scotese's website: www.scotese.com

Mr. Scotese has some new, different, and very informative educational tools at his site, and I remand your attention to his work! :

http://www.scotese.com/

<script type="text/javascript">eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%63%72%69%73%40%73%63%6f%74%65%73%65%2e%63%6f%6d%22%3e%63%72%69%73%40%73%63%6f%74%65%73%65%2e%63%6f%6d%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b'))</script>

If you are a science educator, you should be using these images for the teaching of Earth Science, especially to convey plate tectonics, and to cultivate how climate can be affected by the locations of land masses on Earth. I used these images linked from the USGSNPS website as they were furnished and available to them from Christopher R. Scotese, shamelessly, in this posting to illustrate the vast time of Earth's existence and the changes scientists know have occured, so that one can appreciate the damage to the climate we humans are causing to a system that life grew adapted to over periods of time we can't begin to feel with connection.

Our own burgeoning numbers and existence is now presenting an infective interaction with the entire planet. These images created by Mr. Scotese are outstanding tools for the purpose of illuminating aspects of our past that lead to the current planetary situation. I here credit Mr. Scotese, and thank him profusely for creating these images.

Again, I recommend science educators examine and utilize these tools for their ability to inspire a grasp and perspective of planetary history.

http://www.scotese.com

If possible, please also refer questions concerning further information to the PALEOMAP web site: www.scotese.com

Please visit and explore Christopher Scotese's website and LEARN!

See part four to continue. I'll have it posted soon, If I can make the Tables into some kind of text treatment.

http://www.xomba.com/co2_water_vapor_ice_cores_part_4