Human civilization has never before had the opportunity to manage the kinds of climate disasters that collapsed the Roman and Egyptian empires.

Global climate disasters even correspond with human evolution. Click links for supporting references.

Imagine sea level rise of 7 feet by mid-century. Bridges, roadways, coastal housing, and harbors impassable and unusable. Millions displaced. Farmland inundated.

Global warming will eventually raise Arctic Ocean temperature enough to produce gigantic lake effect storms over Canada and Northern Europe.

We may be unable to reverse this change, but proper research will allow governments to plan and redirect resources needed to control most of the risks.

How likely is this?

Very.

The geologic record indicates global climate disasters repeat every 110,000 years punctuated by more frequent smaller events, like the dark ages.

Recent events include the sudden inundation of western Europe in 8,200 B.C.E. This corresponds with global floods caused by rapid warming that eliminated mile-thick glaciers during the last ice age. The resulting climate pulse destroyed human civilization and submerged coastal remains under a foot of sediment.

Koch researchers acknowledge global warming is a real phenomenon. Government funding was terminated due to political pressure that stalled research in 2001.

The Northwest Passage unexpectedly opened in 2007 because of global warming. This occurred because the Gulf Stream and Pacific circulation force several cubic miles of warm water into the Arctic Ocean every second.

Actual Observations:

No theory can be disputed if it matches a preponderance of actual observation in the real world.

Sea level rise due to melting polar ice occurred the first time about 5 million years ago. Panama rose from the ocean isolating the Gulf of Mexico from the Pacific Ocean forming the Gulf Stream at that time. This forces large quantities of warm water into the Arctic. There have been 3 ice ages with dozens of smaller glaciation events since the Panama Gap closed.

Multiple biological markers correspond with these changes. Genetic markers indicate humans diverged from chimpanzees at about the same time the Panama Gap closed. Nesting areas for Emperor Penguins occupy land despite Antarctic ice barricades indicating biological habits developed when there was less ice. 

Arctic warming has produced enough evaporation to support large storms over the pole for the first time.

Rainfall requires ocean temperatures above 10C (50F) to produce enough evaporation to cause storms. Conditions that support large Arctic storms have not existed for the entire duration of recorded human history.

Koch funded research has confirmed global warming is a real phenomenon after the opening of the Northwest Passage made this blatantly obvious.

Arctic storms reduced arctic ocean ice to the lowest level on record in August 2012. Greenland is experienced 97% melting at the same time.

Severe drought is impacting Africa, Europe and Asia, and is threatening to form deserts across the grain belt. Widespread long term drought also began threatening the central United States at about the same time. Spain is experiencing the worst drought in 70 Years. These droughts are so severe and prolonged that the global grain stockpile is dwindling.

That indicates warmer water in the Arctic has started to cause global air circulation patterns to shift.

The Antarctic had been troubled by warm temperatures centuries before the post-industrial age, so these phenomenon are not new, but human activity is speeding up the process.

The Sahara Desert was covered by lush vegetation as recently as 6,000 years ago, which is the source of desert Oasis and Garden of Eden story described in the Bible, Torah and Quran. The ocean has risen and fallen hundreds of feet for the past 100 million years according to ocean sediment cores, glaciation, and human structures found beneath the ocean.

There is no competing theory that matches all of these observations.

Greenland began melting rapidly in 2006, and that could raise sea level by a dozen feet. This melting should have occurred over the span of thousands of years, but human activity has sped this up. Greenland and the rest of the Arctic is expected to be largely ice free by mid-century.

The Antarctic contains enough ice to raise sea level 200 to 400 feet, but it is highly unlikely that more than one third will melt no matter how much CO2 we dump into the atmosphere. Antarctic melting is guaranteed to raise sea level as a result of rising ocean temperature, and it is extremely likely Antarctic melting will add another dozen feet to sea level rise by the end of the century.

Summary of How Earth's Climate Actually Works:

The atmosphere has 6 donuts of circulating air that form belts around the earth similar to the belts that cover Saturn and Jupiter.

• Hadley Cells cover the equator
• Ferrel Cells cover the mid-lattitudes
• Polar Cells cover the poles

This weather pattern is sustained by hot air rising over the equator, cold air sinking over the poles, and tidal forces that form the trade winds and prevailing westerlies.

Jet streams form between air cells at an altitude of 4 to 15 miles. Except for the equator, these are several miles wide and several miles thick. There is no equatorial jet stream.

Equatorial air rises over the ocean creating monsoon rainfall forming rain forests between the two adjacent Hadley Cells that cover the equator. Tidal forces cause the equatorial air masses to circulate toward the west creating the trade winds. Hot equatorial oceans evaporate up to 1 inch of water each day, and this water is forced out of the air as it rises over the equator. This process creates equatorial monsoons. This creates steady constant rainfall in a band several hundred miles wide.

Air sinks from the upper atmosphere between the Hadley Cell and the Ferrel Cell. This dry forms the great deserts, including the Sahara, Gobi, Sonora, Argentina, and South Africa.

Air rises between the Ferrel Cells and Polar Cells. Ocean evaporation is forced out of this rising air creating heavy rainfall over Canada and Northern Europe. There is no land under this air in the southern hemisphere, so this rainfall creates storms that circulate around Antarctica. This process creates Canadian and European monsoons in a band of steady constant rainfall several hundred miles wide.

Cold air sinks, and arctic ice causes air to sink over the poles. This forms the Polar Cells, which maintains a dry desert-like region in the Arctic and Antarctic. That prevents ice from forming. The only significant source of new ice in the Arctic and Antarctic occurs when salt is forced out of sea water when surface temperatures drop below -40C.

Monsoon rainfall patterns shift as these air cells expand and contract with the seasons. Air cells expand during the summer months and contract during the winter months. This shifts monsoon rainfall several hundred miles north and south, which creates equatorial and boreal rain forests in a band about 1,000 miles wide that extends across Canada, Columbia, Brazil, Guiana, Panama, Northern Europe, Siberia, Southeast Asia, and Tierra del Fuego.

Rainfall extends into dryer areas, like the central United States, when air masses from one air cell "pinch off" and drift into the adjacent air cell. This forms storms, tropical storms, hurricanes, blizzards, and nor'easters. Tidal forces cause these to circulate counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere.

Climate Stability:

Current observations indicate climate change has sped up radically as a direct result of human activity and large climate changes will occur in the next half century.

Five related phenomenon indicate our global air system is becoming unstable and that our climate will change even if human activity ceases tomorrow.

First -- The northern Jet Stream between the US and Canada has been moving northward about 1 mile per year since the 1940s. That separates the Ferrel Cell and Polar Cell that cover all of the land masses in the Northern Hemisphere.

Second -- The Gulf Stream has been forcing hot equatorial water into the Arctic Ocean at rate of several cubic miles each hour for about 5 million years. This is causing a measurable reduction in the Arctic ice cap.

Third -- The geologic record indicates Arctic ice forms quickly during ice ages, with glaciers several mile thick covering Northern Europe, Siberia and Canada within 1,000 years. This requires massive lake-effect storms.

Fourth -- The evaporation required for lake effect storms requires warm water in the Arctic Ocean. There is no mystery about how the Gulf Stream is forcing warm water into the Arctic Ocean.

Fifth -- Hot sea surface water covering the Arctic would produce a steady low pressure zone creating vast lake-effect storms capable of depositing ice at a rate of several feet per year over Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway, and Siberia. The same climate shift would create deserts across most of the United States and southern Europe. 

That matches the geological record.