Extreme Temperatures
Wild weather will cease, and there will be no more droughts, floods, cyclones, or snowstorms and no more plant and animal extinctions.
But the records written in the rocks tell a far different story about climate changes. Even when nature was in full control, it was not a serene place.
Long before the first steam engine puffed along the first railway, the Earth was periodically battered by natural disasters - earthquakes, tidal waves, pole shifts, magnetic reversals, volcanic eruptions, wild weather, and droughts.
Huge areas were covered by suffocating continents of ice, desert sands, massive flows of mud and lava, beds of salt, and thick coal seams. Thousands of species disappeared including dinosaurs, mammoths, and Australia's megafauna.
Modern humans are not immune to the threat of extinction, but it will not come from today's warm, moist atmosphere or from the gas of life, carbon dioxide.
It will probably come from the next glacial climate cycle of this era, where long bitter glacial eras are separated by short warm periods. These global weather cycles are triggered by changing orbits in the solar system.
Texas has been bearing the brunt of a dangerous ice storm that dumped several rounds of sleet and freezing rain, causing life-threatening road conditions in surrounding states including Oklahoma, Arkansas and the Memphis area in Tennessee.
On Wednesday, Texas reported a third person had died during the storm after losing control of her truck on an icy road north of Eldorado. One person was killed in Austin in a 10-car pileup, and another person died after their car rolled over in the Dallas-area city of Arlington, officials said.
And while Thursday is expected to bring some relief from the deadly storm as temperatures slowly rise, the piling of multiple layers of ice and sleet has snapped tree branches and limbs and led to power outages for nearly 400,000 homes and businesses in Texas as of Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. That means thousands of people likely don't have proper heating or hot water as ice coats the ground.
Extensive searches took place after the incident, which happened on the east slope of Mount Hakuba Norikura.
Japanese authorities have not revealed their identity but confirmed they were from a group of five foreign skiers.
Local police said they believed the men were off-piste skiing separately from the rest of the group when the avalanche took place.

A lone driver makes their way through icy road conditions at the LBJ 635 Freeway and North Dallas Tollway interchange on Tuesday.
Dangerous road conditions from bands of sleet and snow were blamed for six deaths as a winter storm snarled traffic across parts of the US, forcing the cancelation of flights and leaving hundreds of thousands without power in several southern states.
Watches and warnings stretched from Texas to Tennessee and Mississippi. Several rounds of mixed precipitation, including freezing rain and sleet, were in store for many areas throughout Wednesday, meaning some regions could be hit multiple times, forecasters said.
"It actually looks like it's going to be getting worse again across Texas, it is already a pretty big area of freezing rain across western and south-western Texas," said Bob Oravec, National Weather Service lead forecaster in Camp Springs, Maryland.
Oravec said the winter weather was expected to move north-east across parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas into western Tennessee and northern Mississippi, before starting to end.
The sun didn't bring much warmth.
NOAA reports showed wind chills of -50ºF and air temps of -18ºF.
The Tetons just received the most snow they've ever recorded in any 2 day period.
41″ in 48-hours
50″ in 50-hours.
52″ storm total.
The Centinela-La Rumorosa highway, the main route along the U.S. border, was temporarily closed in both directions on Tuesday morning, after heavy snowfall that started on Monday night in the town of La Rumorosa in the municipality of Tecate. Local authorities have set up a temporary shelter and are coordinating with the Red Cross to provide assistance to those who need it.
As of shortly before 11 a.m. local time, the state transportation ministry announced that the Centinela-La Rumorosa highway was open in both directions. The La Rumorosa-Tecate free highway was also open in both directions while the La Rumorosa-Tecate tollway remained closed, the ministry said.

Horrifying footage shows a wall of snow roaring down a mountainside and towards the group of skiers, sending them running for safety
Horrifying footage shows a wall of snow roaring down from the 14,400ft peak of Mount Apharwat and towards the group of skiers, sending them running for safety.
But a total of 21 foreign tourists and their two Kashmiri guides were caught in the massive avalanche and buried under the snow as they were skiing high in the mountains near the tourist resort town of Gulmarg, local police said.
High-altitude rescue teams rushed to the site on snow scooters and retrieved the bodies of the two Polish skiers, police officer Amod Nagpuri said.
As many as 68 flights to and from Srinagar were cancelled and the Srinagar-Jammu national highway was closed following heavy snowfall in Kashmir and the upper reaches of Jammu on Monday morning. The NH was shut due to shooting stones and mudslides at several places between Chanderkot and Banihal.
In Himachal, 496 roads were closed due to heavy snow, with the Manali-Keylong road completely blocked. Daily life was thrown out of gear in Shimla, Lahaul and Spiti and Kinnur districts where 180, 158 and 73 roads, respectively, were blocked, while 908 power transformers and water supply were also affected.
"We're hearing reports of up to 7 feet of powder up near the top of the range," Hunter Wright, director of operations at Albany Lodge, told Cowboy State Daily on Monday.
"It's gotten so deep in places, people are even getting stuck out on the flats," he said, adding that 4-5 feet of powder has been reported across most of the Snowy Range's extensive snowmobiling network.
The Kashmir Valley and higher reaches of Jammu were witnessing heavy snowfall, while the plains were having rain since last night. Train services in the valley have also been suspended.
Electricity supply in several areas was snapped due to snow and rain.
Bodies of the two girls buried under the avalanche on Sunday were recovered on Monday. The police said the bodies were recovered with the help of locals. The deceased girls have been identified as 11-year-old Kulsum and 23-year-old Bilques. They were buried under the avalanche in Tangole hamlet in Panikhar area of Kargil district of Ladakh.
Comment: Further south in the same state: Storm dumps 7 FEET of snow over weekend at Snowy Range, Wyoming