Oscillation usually contributes to stability. Sometimes a disturbance, a "pertubation" leads to achieving a new point of stability (Kuramoto, 1984). In living creatures, exposure to heat, poison, radiation, and drought lead to increased variation in offspring but in a special way: earlier phenotypes appear, unmasked by the suppression of contemporary features.

Will climate changes do an analogous thing? Will small changes in Earth's heat intake from the sun lead to new plateaux that can also be found in the fossil record? Or in the histories of human cultures?

Meanwhile, Siberia is about to be frozen, Greenland re freezes, and the United States faces oscillations of extreme cold and milder temperatures. This sort of stuff is weird enough to trigger migrations, mass conformity, and democrat victories.

More at:
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009739004

"Russians Brace for Big Chill

"Jan 16, 2008

"Moscow, Russia (AHN) - Russians are bracing for temperatures of as low as minus 55 degrees Celsius (minus 67 degrees Fahrenheit) in Siberia as Russia's emergencies ministry warns on Wednesday of its impending dangers in the coming weeks....Government agencies were placed on high alert, reports AFP. The ministry ordered local administration officials to prepare for the extreme chill expected to last until Jan. 21...Bloomberg reports that worst hit will be the Siberian region of Evenkiya, while neighbor Georgia, whose climate is subtropical, already plunged to as low as minus 35 degrees Celsius. Lake Paliastomi in the western Georgia froze for the first time in 50 years, reports Rustavi-2 television."
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http://www.cphpost.dk/get/105114.html

"The Copenhagen Post

"Ice returns as Greenland temps plummet

"Residents insist Greenland's freezing temperatures don't mean global warming has been called off... a brutal cold snap is raging across the semi-autonomous nation of Greenland...On Disko Bay in western Greenland...temperatures have ropped so drastically that the water has frozen over for the first time in a decade...Temperatures plunged to -25°C earlier this month, clogging the bay with ice and making shipping impossible for small crafts, according to Anthon Frederiksen, the mayor of the town of Ilulissat, where Disko Bay is located....'On the other hand, it's an advantage for fishermen who rely on dogsleds for transportation,' Frederiksen said...The mayor cautioned against thinking that the freezing temperature indicated that global warming claims were overblown. He noted that a nearby glacier had retracted more in the past two decades than in recorded history...'We Greenlanders have acclimated to changing conditions over the past 1100 years,' said Frederiksen. 'Temperatures change at regular intervals.'"

So they do....

We may all be in for a rough time as we shunt between igloos and open decks, floods and droughts. Calvin suggested that rapid climate changes drove the emergence of human intelligence. If so, the species may be about to gain another 20 points! I also remain skeptical that buying mercury bulbs or giving Algore $100 million will make anything better.

JimB

Reference:
Kuramoto Y (1984/2003) Chemical Oscillations, Waves, and Turbulence. Orig: Springer. Reprint - NY: Dover.