Comet or Meteorite Impact Events in 1178AD?

SIS Conference ^ | 1-26-2003 | Emilio Spedicato

[Go_Raiders]

Self Ping

[blam]

"Could something like this have cause what we would now call nuclear winter effect?"

Yes.

Astronomers Clube And Napier call this a 'cosmic winter' in their excellent book by the same title,Cosmic Winter

"Synopsis

"During five days in late June 1975, a swarm of boulders the size of motor cars struck the moon at a speed of 67,000 miles per hour. On 30 June 1908 an object crashed on Siberia with the force of a large hydrogen bomb. The moon was also struck on 25 June 1178 struck, this time by a missile whose energy was ten times that of the combined nuclear arsenals of the world. Why late June? What is the nature of such events? And what threat do they pose to mankind? The authors aim to reveal the answers in this book. They argue that rains of fire visit the earth from time to time, destroying civilizations and plunging mankind into Dark Ages. They uncover a lost tradition of celestial catastrophe, and underpin these claims with foundations based on the latest discoveries in space. They produce a risk assessment which reveals that civilization could well come to an abrupt end, destroyed by a rain of fire followed by an icy, cosmic winter."

[COEXERJ145]

Krakatau went BOOM in 1883, a little late to have caused the Mini-Ice Age. You might be thinking of the "Year Without a Summer" (1815-1816) which was caused by the eruption of the Mt. Tambora in what was then known as the Dutch East Indies which are now part of Indonesia.

[AntiGuv]

What about the "Mini-Ice Age" which occured in the Late Middle Ages? Could something like this have cause what we would now call nuclear winter effect?

The practical answer is: No. You need a very large strike on land to kick up enough debris to affect the climate for decades. That leaves a big mark, and creates a big boom, the kind of mark and boom people notice and write about...

In addition to that, a meteor that creates a huge tidal wave by definition falls into the ocean. Such a meteor kicks up no dust. You can't have it both ways..

[AntiGuv]

I meant post #24 for you.

[blam]

"Check out Catastrophe: A Quest for the Origins of the Modern World by David Keys"

I read that.

I like the explanation by professor Mike Baillie in his excellent book, Exodus To Arthur
Although the trees worldwide record a catastrophic event at that time, Baillie explains that there isn't an acid layer (at this time) in the Ice Core samples that is indicitive of a volcano. He argues for a celestial event.

"The five harshest environmental events showing in the dendrochronology records are events at 2354-2345 BC, 1628-1623 BC, 1159-1141 BC, 208-204 BC, and 536-545 AD. In terms of climate, these time periods appear similar in that the growth ring evidence implies colder than usual temperatures and unusual rainfall patterns."

I believe the 1168BC event was the Exodus period and when Santorini/Thera/Akatori in the Mediterranean blew it's top.

[AntiGuv]

PS. Unless the meteor is so big that it vaporizes the ocean water and kicks up the ocean floor into the atmosphere. Then you could get both the (spectacular) tidal wave and an extended climate change, but rest assured that such a strike in 1178 in the Eastern Pacific Ocean would be readily apparent even today, assuming we weren't extinct..

[blam]

"In addition to that, a meteor that creates a huge tidal wave by definition falls into the ocean. Such a meteor kicks up no dust. You can't have it both ways."

Sure you can. Swarms!

Have you ever seen the Carolina Bays?

[Thud]

Keys said in his Catastrophe that aerosols injected into the stratosphere by a 535 A.D. volcano drafting Tambora did cause worldwide crop failures for almost two years due to something like the "nuclear winter" scam (which was a fraud - it killed Carl Sagan's scientific career).

Keys figured out that something created major, major climate changes at this time, ruled out impacts due to the lack of evidence (geologic on land, recorded tsunamis if at sea), decided it had to be of volcanic origin, then decided that the location had to be near the equator as the recorded climate/crop failure/ice core & tree ring measures were similar for both the northern and southern hemispheres, and finally found a probable eruption site in what is now Indonesia.

[Thud]

Thanks. Note post # 28 making an argument that there could have been bunch of small, near-simultaneous, ocean impacts no one of which would have produced recognizable tsunami evidence but which together could have injected enough aerosols into the stratosphere.

Keys makes a good case for a truly dramatic event around 535 A.D. affecting climate worldwide.

[wildbill]

I believe there has been a lot of research on the Little Ice Age that occured about 1100-1200 in Europe and most people have posited that it was caused by meteor or comet impacts which threw up enough debris and particles into the atmosphere to cause climate change.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

read later

[Chummy]

"...in the year 1178 A.D. four wise men of Canterbury were sitting outside on a clear and calm 18th June night, a half Moon standing placidly in the starry sky...."

My curiosity raised, I checked some of my astronomy software and at first thought the four wise men of Canterbury were a bit, well, "lune-y". But then I remembered: the date, owing to a change in calendars since then would actually be June 9 and a waning gibbous moon was running low over the southerly skies during this night.

[AntiGuv]

Swarms of meteor strikes on land would leave swarms of craters. The Tapanui craters don't seem nearly sufficient enough to create a century of cooling. Moreover, the "Mini Ice Age" wasn't until the 14th century, well removed from the alleged timing of this impact.

I read the full article and lemme say that I'm a bit skeptical. There is a curious amalgam of oceanic and atmospheric features that don't seem altogether coherent. There should be additional signs of widespread meteor strikes that are missing (why did the shower of impacts miss China, or Europe?) or ambiguous (astronomers quite clearly knew the difference between comets and meteors).

I have no problem with the idea of tsunamis afflicting the Amerindians and altering the course of their civilizations. I would think seaquakes are a perfectly fine explanation. Altering the El Niño phenomenon would require a major disruption of the ocean-atmosphere dynamics of the Tropics; I don't see how relatively mild (in the grand scheme of things) meteor strikes accomplish the task.

Nevertheless, I think that there is a decent case to be made for meteor strikes in the late 12th century Pacific Basin, but I think this thesis falls apart on account of overreaching with an extrapolation back to Japan, China, and Mongolia that seems tenuous, at very best.

[AntiGuv]

PS. I could be mistaken about this, but I thought the evidence of a historical tsunami can be discerned from the geology of a region. Is there actually geological evidence in Peru or Mexico of an enormous 12th century tsunami?

[Plutarch]

...the El Niño current is cold, so a strong El Niño wipes out most of this shellfish...

El Nino is by definition warm, not cold. The credibility of his argument is not helped by getting something so basic so wrong.

El Niño a warm current of water

El Niño (Spanish name for the male child), initially referred to a weak, warm current appearing annually around Christmas time along the coast of Ecuador and Peru and lasting only a few weeks to a month or more. Every three to seven years, an El Niño event may last for many months, having significant economic and atmospheric consequences worldwide.

[bitt]

mark. good stuff.

[jimbergin]

Thank you for posting the definition of "decimate". The wrong use of decimate is my pet peeve.

[TXnMA]

and its colour change slowly from light brilliant to a darker reddish tone. Such a colour remained for all the time the Moon was visible during that phase.

Sounds exactly the reddish "Earthlight" that colors the eclipsed Moon, to me...

During total Lunar eclipse, looking back at Earth, someone on the Moon would see the Earth's atmosphere as a ring of reddish "sunset" light surrounding a dark Earth. It is that reddish "sunset Earthlight" that imparts the reddish/coppery color to the eclipsed (shadowed) Moon...

[Mike Darancette]

bump for later