The Climate Matrix

This book is an independent view on climate. A first chapter explains how climate works. How can we measure climate? What drives climate? The Second chapter shows the fierceness and brutality with which climate impacts human society the last 4000years. A third chapter a window to the past and to the future in terms of millions of years. I admit I was really surprised to see what climate is doing in terms of millions of years. This book will guide you through your world as you cannot imagine your world. Mega lakes of hundreds of kilometer and hundreds of meter deep disappear and appear like mushrooms. Half a planet dies and comes back alive in a couple of millennia. The dynamics are sometimes mindboggling. This book shows the complex interaction of atmosphere and live and reverse to an extend you may not have expected. This book makes the hard work visible of organizations, researches, universities, institutions, sponsors. They make the invisible visible. Thank you! This book also pointed to the vulnerability of this planet. Climate can destroy faster and more than humans can, at the other hand humans have the possibility to fix climate as we understand climate drivers better. Téo Corthout

Téo Corthout was 7 years old when he was fascinated by the disappearance of ancient civilizations such as the Mayas ... While the climate web got more and more accurate and complete, he would understand that megadroughts are rather the rule than the exception everywhere on the planet. The Lacandon (Figure 2.2 1 p.7) became a permanent drive and presence during years of his climate quest. He describes them as: "the white angels of the forest". When he was 8 years old he was climbing in trees higher than high, and dug tunnels and holes deeper than deep. "The Climate Matrix" is written in honor of K'in Chankin Chanuk, one of the most remarkable persons he has met. The Lacandon represent ancient wisdom and tradition. The Lacondon represent the fight against colonial powers and climate degradation which came to a double collapse of the Maya civilizations. Twenty years late,1988, he would look for something more inspiring and challenging than Master of Science in Engineering Technology. In a couple of years, he managed to be fluent in 8 languages. A step stone to the planet. New languages and exotic cultures, a sharp contrast with his technical education. At the break of the rise of the machines. Soon automatization and social media would rule the world. 2004, the rise of the machines. From the window from his plane, he sees month by month, the impact of humans on the surface of the Earth. From the sky, black domes above our cities (Mexico, Moscow) were visible. Soon, brownish air was visible above our countries. 2012, the Climate Matrix started as a spin-off of my reforestation project "3-FORCE". The goal of 3-FORCE was: each person plants just as many trees to offset their personal emissions. A simple and efficient idea yes indeed! But, already at an initial stage I was concerned by tree growth in function of time, in a rapidly heating world. With: "in function of time", I mean over 50, 100 years because that is the time frame in which trees grow. A basic Google Earth based model uploaded with hundreds of climatic plots emerged. The model became of such a size there was a need for stabilizing all information in order not to lose the knowledge. It took a year to make the book readable for the public. The Climate Matrix would expose a fascinating future. Where man will have to do MUCH better than compensating some CO2. Some much bigger monsters a lurking there out in the dark.