|
Posted on 08/02/2008 2:28:28 PM PDT by Renfield
THE last ice age 13,000 years ago took hold in just one year, more than ten times quicker than previously believed, scientists have warned. Rather than a gradual cooling over a decade, the ice age plunged Europe into the deep freeze, German Research Centre for Geosciences at Potsdam said.
Cold, stormy conditions caused by an abrupt shift in atmospheric circulation froze the continent almost instantly during the Younger Dryas less than 13,000 years ago – a very recent period on a geological scale.
The new findings will add to fears of a serious risk of this happening again in the UK and western Europe – and soon.
Dr Achim Brauer, of the GFZ (GeoForschungs Zentrum) German Research Centre for Geosciences at Potsdam, and colleagues analysed annual layers of sediments, called "varves", from a German crater lake.
Each varve records a single year, allowing annual climate records from the region to be reconstructed.
After this past winter I was beginning to think it was happening again.
related to the postulated major cometary airburst impact in canada at about this time?
That would certainly put enough stuff in the atmosphere to alter global temperatures in a very short period of time.
The Younger Dryas was not a glacial maximum, although it was a nasty little event. There is an intriguing new theory that the melt many believe caused the event by shutting down the Gulf Stream was caused by an impact or atmospheric explosion from an asteroid or comet over Canada.
We're getting close to another interglacial maximum, which is why we've been in a warming trend. Duh.
Of course, within the larger cycle are many shorter ups and downs like the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.
What I have always found scary, on a philosophical level, is that the glacial maximum periods last so long. I can easily see how 60k or more years of glacial maximum could trash mankind's technological and cultural progress and put us back into hunter-gatherer mode.
And to think there are idiots doing everything they can to trigger an ice age. Of course, I agree with you they can't do it.
You’re correct. The last ice age was melting down around 13,000 years ago and then the Younger Dryas ‘occured’. A new theory, with strong supporting evidence suggests an asteroid or comet impact in the Eastern Canadian ice sheet caused the Younger Dryas, the mass extintions of large animals in North America and the end of the Clovis culture. The animals had survived many ice ages before so renewed glaciation would not have posed a threat. Their abrubt extinction at the same time as the Clovis people as well as the rapid return of glaciation point to catastrophism.
I've heard it said that the glacial maximum periods are characterized by wind. If that means that Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming etc. are basically calm places now I don't even want to think about it. lol
That makes sense. I can also imagine that animals that had adapted gradually to warming over a few centuries might have been socked pretty hard by an abrupt shift to cold no matter what caused it.
I can see the headlines now:
“Global Warming Causes New Ice Age. Bush at Fault”
:-)
I don’t know how anyone would know but I have heard that there was three miles of ice above the Rockies. When you look at something like the Diamond on Long’s Peak and think about what it took to shear that off like a flint knapper taking a flake off of a piece of stone it has some credibility. But I don’t know how it really was. I do know that it would only take about 40’ of snow to cover up every stick of firewood around. Solid ice and high winds. Brrrr!
It's speculation on my part, but I would really doubt they were three miles thick, especially where the plains and mountain valleys were ice-free.
Still, the slogan "tis a pleasure to live in Colorado" probably wouldn't have been coined during the last glacial max. :-))
Three miles of ice makes me skeptical too. That would be more ice than the mountains are high from sea level. But I did read that theory somewhere. I’m just glad to be here now speculating about it and I hope it keeps warming.
“the earth is overdue for a sudden swift flip into a new ice age.”
If you read the book about “cosmic catastrophes” listed in Comment 22, you will learn that the sudden shift was probably caused by one or more major extraterrestrial boloid strikes in Canada and possibly elsewhere. Hopefully, we are not going to have that happen. On the other hand if the Gulf Stream current no longer gets frozen in the far north, this may affect the NADW or NAO (check Google) and slow down or stop the Gulf Stream, which could cause serious problems in the coming decades.
I read an article once upon a time, about the discovery of a frozen wooly mammoth in Siberia. The article stated he was fairly well preserved, and as it was discovered, still contained the remnants of his last, partially undigested meal, in his stomach.
Can’t recall where I read it, so cannot vouch for accuracy.
That be a pretty quick freeze if you ask me. And It would seem that certain latitudes would freeze far quicker than the equatorial ones. Which of course makes sense.
Guess the better not implement the smaller bubbles for ships plan that was mentioned in a thread yesterday,
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
