It is now clear that what both prophets and scientists foresaw, in significant measure, has come to be.

They said there would be extremes of both wet and dry, cold and hot, and such has been witnessed on every habitable continent, and really even in Antarctica.

Experts on the climate years ago had told us that a warming trend would produce extremes, with some places encountering far more atmospheric moisture that would lead to heavier forms of precipitation.

Other places would find themselves excruciatingly dry -- even desiccated.

Such has been borne out by the events of the past several years.

From record snow in New York City to the recent soaking in places like Pennsylvania, there has been an up-cycle in atmospheric moisture at the same time that other areas have experienced drought. The intensity of hurricanes, which was also foreseen, has likewise met prophetic indications. It is a time of extremes. Expect a future in which droughts greatly expand in the West while the East sees less frequent snowfalls but, like New York, record ones when they do come.

Even President George Bush, long opposed to the idea of climate shift, declared this week that "climate change is a serious problem."

We have long called it a climate "gyration" (it can plummet as quickly as it has risen, as was seen in the Middle Ages), and already remarkable scenes have played out -- from vanishing glaciers (Glacier National Park will one day soon be without ice, say scientists) to blazing fires out West.

In this mix have come to light some potentially remarkable facts, ones that may harbor further prophetic relevance.

On Tuesday it was announced by one group of scientists that earth's climate is undergoing an "abrupt change" that began with a cold snap 5,200 years ago.

That's fascinating because such coincides with the biblical Flood, a leading expert on glaciers, Dr. Lonnie G. Thompson, concluded.

His findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the most prestigious scientific group in the U.S.

"It represents a time where, for many parts of the world, people ceased to be hunters and gatherers," he said. "Many of the modern calendars began around this time. It would also fall in the general time of the biblical Flood."

Interestingly: the cold snap back in Noah's time also coincided with the start of cities and the beginning of calendars -- indicating that natural events are harbingers for major shifts in the nature of civilization.

That cool period eventually ended, and it was warm by the time of Christ. Since that time, cool and warm periods have fluctuated. We are now in another warm period -- one of the warmest ever, and in fact the warmest, in the Northern Hemisphere in 2,000 years -- since the time of Jesus.

Our current warming, said Thompson, "is unprecedented for at least two millennia."

That report was issued by three other scientists, Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes.

And so it all grows all the more intriguing, as we warn that there will be events in places that do not always expect it.

Lightning has been setting records. So have tornadoes. Such effects specifically in the realm of local meteorology were fore-echoed in the realm of prophecy, where weather effects have been predicted since the early 1990s -- actually, well ahead of major public statements by meteorologists, climatologists, and other scientists. In this realm, prophecy has proven to be uncannily accurate.

As we continue in this new century and new millennium, changes will increasingly intensify. "Your era is ending," asserted a key prophecy we have followed since 1990. "Soon the world will not be the world you know."

Such is already the case in parts of the Arctic, and will soon be true of other regions.

06/29/06