Milutin Milanković – Scientist of the Day

FIRST IMAGE Milutin Milanković, a Serbian mathematician, died Dec. 12, 1958, at age 79. 

the ice had come for them, the ice had abandoned them. the ice had shed itself of their pain and their loss, and the ice had given way to something else --- all with little influence from the ice masters. the title felt like something of a stranger here; it fit on teo’s shoulders more like memory than truth, for they had entered a new world. a strange world. one that he could not worry about or ponder on. there was only this: the surviving. there was only this: what comes next now that my feet have found land once more. 

and so he sat in the little tavern, his head tipped low in a grief fire had not fully burned away, glancing up only at the approach of a pair of steps that had become familiar to him. ( although he usually only heard them swallowed by snow, gliding on the frozen surface. they were expected. )

“seems we’ve served our purpose then.” he slid a drink to ephraim and offered a seat. teo had never been one for company, but he had heard what the other man did in those moments before nyima was shot --- and while teo guessed it had little to do with the agathe crew, he respected it all the same. for there was us and there was them, but ephraim was carefully walking the space between. “i can’t imagine another freeze.”

e --- 

you chose the worst time of year to be born, you know that? should’ve picked january, but looks like i was the only smart one there, hm? dead of winter, and no confusing it. but you had to go and be born in the warm months, in the months where we should have ease on the water and sticky air. and now it doesn’t even feel like your birthday. yes, i’m mad about this. no, i will not explain further. doesn’t matter. i’m not good at writing notes. you know this. 

what do you even say to someone you’ve said damn near everything to? 

so then. made you something. whittled it with my favorite knife. made from a piece of driftwood i picked up. god knows how long ago. if you can’t tell, it’s a fox. why a fox? it’s a promise, right? you’ll outsmart even death. besides, reminds me of land. of home and what july should be. thought you might need the reminder too. 

happy birthday, e. i’ll look after the crew. you look after mal. and jaya, though she’ll say she doesn’t need it. and we’ll survive because that’s what we’re good at. another year. just one more. 

j.

the ice was not meant to exist like this --- a ripple across the surface, almost like a rock in pond water, and then silence, silence. nothing but the cold, and them trapped at the center of it. ice was meant to be alive, a bendable, drifting thing that, when it came together, it came in groans and sheets. not this, not this. 

but since when had teo’s pleas been answered in the arctic? he glanced at ephraim, at the same shock that sat between the both of them. the ice will not yield to them; they’d become part of it. would they be found like this too, sat and stuck in the ice for a hundred years more, skin blue and unwilling to rot? trapped, forever trapped.

“it can’t stretch far --- it’s too early in the season.” yet teo paced back and forth, knowing he was wrong, knowing it had happened, that it was happening again. “if it’s meant to trap us, it’s done a damn fine job of it. but the ice has to break up nearby. it has to.”

“do you think we died then?” she stared forward, a false calm on her face --- false as the sea around, something familiar turned on its head, something familiar that was no longer sound. she glanced toward ephraim, at the scope of his features; when would he turn into something strange too, when would he go the way of the ocean? ( did ghosts decide who was haunted, or was it something they were born into, blood already past the point of rot? ) jules clung to the side of the ship, clung to the only thing she knew. the promethean, their own purgatory, trapped in darkness, trapped in endless night. how might it be salvation and prison both? “during the last expedition, i mean. being back on land never felt as real as this.”  

Download quaternary glaciations extent and chronology

Interactive Timeline of Recent Ice Ages in North America

from NPS

"This timeline is an interactive map of North America that shows glacier advance and retreat during the past 180 thousand years. To operate it click on the arrows above and below the timeline controller on your right (or press the up and down arrows keys on your computer keyboard)

The bar in the center of the controller represents average global temperature. The brightest red in the bar corresponds to 22°C, while the darkest blue corresponds to 12°C. Consequently ice ages show up as blue bands.

Major glaciations are indicated by white bands that show the duration of each period. Globally the two last two major glaciations include the Illinoian (158 to 310 thousand years ago) and the Wisconsin (12 to 80 thousand years ago).

The two major periods shown on the left side of the controller are principle divisions of the Quaternary (recent geologic time). The latest of these, the Holocene, extends from 0 to 11,680 years. While the previous period, the Pleistocene, ranges from 11,680 to 1.81 million years ago.

Note: Some of the glacier extents shown on the map are speculative since advancing glaciers tend to destroy evidence of past glaciations..."