Hour-long hailstorm may have caused 1,000-year freeze, say scientists

Telegraph ^ | 04/02/10

[TigerLikesRooster]

Hour-long hailstorm may have caused 1,000-year freeze, say scientists

An hour-long hailstorm from space may have changed the climate of the Earth in 11,000 BC, leading to a freeze lasting more than 1,000 years, scientists say.

Published: 8:00AM BST 02 Apr 2010

An hour-long hailstorm from space may have changed the climate of the Earth in 11,000 BC, leading to a freeze lasting more than 1,000 years, scientists say.

A comet may well have caused the earth to freeze for over 1,000 years Photo: GETTY

The catastrophe, caused by a disintegrating comet, wiped out large numbers of animal species and disrupted human cultures.

A new theory put forward by according to Professor Bill Napier, from the Cardiff University Astrobiology Centre suggests it occurred when the Earth strayed into a dense trail of fragments shed by a large comet.

Thousands of chunks of material from the comet would have rained down on Earth, each one releasing the energy of a one megaton nuclear bomb.

[thulldud]

To LLS: See there! You pays your money and takes your choice!

Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: How many can you afford?

[muawiyah]

The last major glaciation was over about 15,000 years ago. The current interglacial is 5,000 years overdue to disappear.

What occurred in the middle is a phenomenon called "The Younger Dryas" ~ about 11,000 years ago, after everything had become warm and toasty and even forests were returning to the Midwest, it got nasty and cold again and glaciers built up almost overnight.

This diaster destroyed the Clovis culture in North America, and in some manner wiped out both the Giant Hairy Elephants, which was bad, and the Giant Nasty Saber toothed Tigers, which was good!

It lasted 1000 years.

Studies of nanoparticles left behind at the time indicate that a comet caused the problem one way or the other ~ either by dropping a giant hailstorm on Earth, or blasting holes in the remaining glacial sheet in Canada, or knocking SUVs off the road ~ something like that.

Whatever you learned as a child about the Ice Age(s) is bunk. There were at least 20 major cycles over the last couple of million years. The next one is certainly going to happen.

[Smokin' Joe]

The catastrophe, caused by a disintegrating comet, wiped out large numbers of animal species and disrupted human cultures.

Anything which disrupts food supplies disrupts human culture.

If these hit with the power of megaton bombs, where are the craters?

[DocRock]

It's a space peanut

[Smokin' Joe]

It is no different than a giant rock hitting earth.

Yep, except you'd get a crater and no rock.

So where are the craters?

[TigerLikesRooster]

There should be many small craters made by those comets. However,even if they said each has the power of megaton bomb, its depth cannot be as deep as the one we tend to associate with the power of such magnitude. It does not help that earth was still covered with thick ice and when glacier finally melt, the part of crater itself could have been washed out. Then, there is a chance that comet broke up in the atmosphere.

I remember somebody tried to find out exactly how many craters Earth has, upon seeing so many on the Moon. He figured that Earth must have as many as the Moon. He wondered where they were. Or Earth is really lucky to escape barrage from space? I think he used some earth-penetrating radar(?) to sweep the earth and found out there are a lot more crater impressions than we see on the surface. Most have been covered up.

I am sure many comets landed on earth and made some marks. We have to track down all those crater impressions under the surface and ascertain their age. That is a lot of work but I hope they are able to do it someday.

[djf]

Yup.

Seems to be good evidence of a comet coming in - splitting, part of it exploding over Alaska, and the rest exploding a bit southwest of Lake Superior

about 13,000 yrs ago, around 11,400 BC.

[dennisw]

This theory is as valid as Global Warming. Looks like he didn’t get a grant (taxpayers money) to dream up this scenario. Hey, maybe it’s true go ask the cave men or dinosaurs (/sarc)

[TigerLikesRooster]

As long as this guy is not trying to dictate policy on the global scale which runs the risk of wasting trillions or money or even worse ruining millions of lives, he could push it as scientific hypothesis. I am against applying half-baked theory to human society, based on some ingrained ideological bias, such as quest for regaining primordial unmolested past. That is basically what leftism in the West is about.

Many man-made catastrophes of the world in last couple of centuries originated from this mentality in a nutshell.

[SunkenCiv]

---

The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization by Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith

---

• What killed the mammoths and other behemoths?
• Ancient Atomic Warfare - Religious texts and geological evidence
• Supernova debris found on Earth
• Deep freeze dealt death knell to bison (Ice Age)
• Supernova Storm Wiped Out Mammoths?
• Supernova Storm Wiped Out Mammoths?
• Scientist: Comets Blasted Early Americans
• Native Americans Recorded Supernova Explosion
• Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times
• Did comet start deadly cold snap?
• Diamonds tell tale of comet that killed off the cavemen
• Catastrophic Comet Chilled and Killed Ice Age Beasts (and Clovis people)
• Oregon Researchers Involved In New Clovis-Age Impact Theory (More)
• Comet May Have Doomed Mammoths
• Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did A Comet Blow Up Over Eastern Canada? (More) (Carolina Bays)
• Climate alarmists lose another piece of evidence
• Comet Theory Collides With Clovis Research, May Explain Disappearance of Ancient People
• NSF Press Release: Comet May Have Exploded Over North America 13,000 Years Ago
• Research Team Says Extraterrestrial Impact To Blame For Ice Age Extinctions (More)
• Cosmic blast may have killed off megafauna: Scientists say early humans doomed, too
• Cosmic blast may have killed off megafauna: Scientists say early humans doomed, too
• Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago
• Site Provides Evidence For Ancient Comet Explosion (Topper - SC)
• The End of Eden: The Comet That Changed Civilization
• Great beasts peppered from space
• Did Comets Cause Ancient American Extinctions?
• Al Goodyear And The Secrets Of Ancient Americans
• The mysterious forest rings of northern Ontario
• Life Survived Catastrophic Space Rock Impact [Chesapeake Bay area]
• Research Casts New Light On History Of North America
• Exploding Asteroid Theory Strengthened By New Evidence Located In Ohio, Indiana
• First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia....
• Diamonds Rained Down During Ice Age
• Diamonds Rained Down During Ice Age ($$$)
• First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia Over Bering Strait -
• Tracking down abrupt climate changes (Rapid natural climate change 12,700 years ago)
• Mammoth Mystery: The Beasts' Final Years
• Scientists find signs of 13,000-year-old extinction event
• Scientists say comet killed off mammoths, saber-toothed tigers
• Diamonds Linked to Quick Cooling Eons Ago
• Six North American sites hold 12,900-year-old nanodiamond-rich soil
• Did a Comet Hit Earth 12,000 Years Ago?
• Mammoths wiped out by 'perfect storm?'
• Laser mapping may help solve the mystery of the Mima Mounds
• Humans to Blame for Extinction? - Not Necessarily So ...
• Did a Comet Cause a North American Die-Off around 13,000 Years Ago?
• Carolina bays gouged into the ground at a magnetic reversal
• North America comet theory questioned
• Mini ice age took hold of Europe in months
• Car-Sized Creature Whacked with Tail's Sweet Spot (until 10,000 years ago)
• Starvation 'wiped out' giant deer
• Prehistoric man, giant animal coexisted
• Extinction of Giant Mammals Changed Landscape Dramatically
• Sophisticated hunters not to blame for driving mammoths to extinction
• Big freeze plunged Europe into ice age in months
• Kansas scientists probe mysterious possible comet strikes on Earth
• Explosive Nearby Star Could Threaten Earth
• T Pyxidis Soon To Be A Type Ia Supernova
• The Death Star (Supernova close to Earth - could wipe us out)
• Cave reveals Southwest's abrupt climate swings during Ice Age
• Musk Ox Population Decline Due to Climate, Not Humans, Study Finds

[SunkenCiv]

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[TigerLikesRooster]

Correction: trillions orof money

[LibertyRocks]

No, but I think as the old saying goes I could probably tell you if it will for the next 3 Sundays or not... It’s a shame I can’t remember how the tale went, I just remember it vaguely. Perhaps someone else on the thread will remember...

[ApplegateRanch]

Thousands of chunks of material from the comet would have rained down on Earth, each one releasing the energy of a one megaton nuclear bomb.

It was all that nuclear bomb energy released that caused the fires...but somehow didn't prevent the freezing.

Everything lined up just exactly wrong, allowing Heisenburg's uncertain little demon to make everything colder, the hotter it became, just like putting a tea kettle on the fire to freeze, or into the fridge to boil.

[Othniel]

A big hailstorm could also account for the flash freezing of mammoths. A flood could, too. When the "fountains of the deep" opened up, and water shot a couple of dozen miles in the air, got supercooled, then fell back to earth, lowering the temperatures beyond the norm.

[Interesting Times]

Space objects ping.

[zot]

Thanks for the space objects ping. Must have been small chunks at relatively low velocity, without world-wide fires followed by world-wide winter, because it didn’t wipe out the megafauna in Africa. If anything like comet Shoemaker Levy had hit the Earth instead of Jupiter we wouldn’t be here.

[Smokin' Joe]

It does not help that earth was still covered with thick ice and when glacier finally melt, the part of crater itself could have been washed out.

Actually, I am near the southern edge of the last advance, marked in North Dakota by the Missouri River. About half of North America was not covered by the ice at that point, although just north of the river the thickness estimate for the ice sheet is over a kilometer.

While glacial outwash, loess (windblown sediment), and normal processes since then have doubtless obscured many of the features, satellite imaging in the infrared spectrum and radar mapping have disclosed many features both natural and artificial which are otherwise not readily apparent in high altitude imagery. I would hope the writers would pursue attempting to identify such features, and if they find any possibles in NW North Dakota or NE Montana I would be willing to put in some spare time doing field work and sampling to help verify or refute individual sites. (I have a strange concept fo 'fun', at least to most folks.)

My interest is in finding what may have driven any climate change at that point.

I do not find the evidence supportive of Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change (not beyond a local scale), but I do believe natural processes have been at work, including impacts of material from space.

[aruanan]

This was also at the same time of the gigantic zeta-pinch aurora that could have profoundly altered climate as well as have resulted in many of the same features (such as widespread burning and formation of nanodiamonds) as the comet-encounter that left no crater.

[dennisw]

You are right. This guy may be grandstanding and looking for notoriety. Or maybe he is very good at what he does. But he’s not trying to use science to force an eco-agenda that costs trillions the way the global warming frauds do