December 14, 1999: The Coming Global Superstorm - Whitley Strieber
The book weaves between a fictional scenario of civilization-ending storms and factual climate science, examining how the North Atlantic current regulates global weather. Art and Whitley explore geological evidence of past sudden climate shifts, the mysterious origins of ancient monuments like the Sphinx and the sunken structure off Yonaguni, Japan, and legends of prior civilizations destroyed by superstorms. They argue the Zodiac may be an ancient warning calendar marking cyclical catastrophes.
Art shares alarming listener reports from Alaska, New Hampshire, and the Great Lakes region describing unprecedented winds, glacial retreat, and weather anomalies. He notes that 40 percent of Arctic ice has disappeared in two decades and that the North Atlantic current may already be shifting, suggesting the book's fictional scenario is becoming reality.
Key Moments
Buoy 44011 - The Opening Warning Sign: The book opens with Buoy 44011 in the North Atlantic recording a sudden 12-degree water temperature drop, dismissed as a malfunction. The authors frame this small data point as the moment 2 billion human lives came into mortal jeopardy because the North Atlantic Current had just changed course.
1000-Year Temperature Record Reversed: The narration cites a March 1999 University of Arizona and University of Massachusetts study constructing a 1000-year record of Earth's average temperature, finding a 900-year cooling trend has been suddenly and decisively reversed in the past 50 years by greenhouse gases.
Personal Survival Guide - Move South: Strieber and Bell pivot from theory to direct second-person instruction: if you live in Kansas City, Bristol, or Hamburg, your first warning will be successive Arctic cold fronts; the farther north your home, the more quickly you must move south.
Instant Death by Frozen Lungs: Vivid passage describing the storm's worst phase: temperatures so low uncovered skin freezes instantly, breathing too fast risks death by frost in the lungs, and entire populations including indigenous peoples whose ancestors had lived in the Arctic for 10,000 years die on foot wrapped in warm clothes.
Terminal Climax of a Mass Extinction: The narration argues humanity is living through the terminal climax of a mass extinction event on the scale of the Permian and Cretaceous die-offs, with the past 15,000 years as the terminal phase and the Industrial Revolution mimicking the asteroid-and-fire effect that ended the dinosaurs.