Scientists See Evidence of Rapid Climate Change
MSNBC Online, October 28, 1999 In a study that may sound a warning, researchers have found evidence that the world's climate can change suddenly, almost like a thermostat that clicks from cold to hot. A new technique for analyzing gases trapped in Greenland glaciers shows that an ice age that gripped the Earth for thousands of years ended abruptly 15,000 years ago when the average air temperatures soared. "There was a 16- degree abrupt warming at the end of the last ice age," said Jeffrey P. Severinghaus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, lead author of a study to be published Friday in the journal Science. "It happened within just a couple of decades. The old idea was that the temperature would change over a thousand years. But we found it was much faster." Change in Water Temperature -- Severinghaus said the rapid rise in air temperature in Greenland may have been touched off by a surge in warm currents in the Atlantic Ocean that brought a melting trend to the vast ice sheet that covered the Northern Hemisphere. It still took hundreds of years for the ice to recede, but the start of the great thaw was much more sudden than scientists had once thought. This suggests, Severinghaus said, that the Earth's climate is "tippy" -- prone to be stable for long periods, but then suddenly change when the conditions are right. This raises a red flag of caution.
Earth in Upheaval by Immanuel Velikovsky
(This guy was a buddy of Albert Einstein's) The Ivory Islands, pages 4-6 -- In 1797, the body of a mammoth, with flesh, skin, and hair, was found in northeastern Siberia. The flesh had the appearance of freshly frozen beef; it was edible, and wolves and sled dogs fed on it without harm. The ground must have been frozen ever since the day of their entombment; had it not been frozen, the bodies of the mammoths would have putrefied in a single summer, but they remained unspoiled for some thousands of years. In some mammoths, when discovered, even the eyeballs were still preserved. (All) this shows that the cold became suddenly extreme ... and knew no relenting afterward. In the stomachs and between the teeth of the mammoths were found plants and grasses that do not grow now in northern Siberia ...(but are) ... now found in southern Siberia. Microscopic examination of the skin showed red blood corpuscles, which was proof, not only of a sudden death, but that the death was due to suffocation either by gases or water.
Whales in the Mountains, pages 46-49 -- Bones of whale have been found 440 feet above sea level, north of Lake Ontario; a skeleton of another whale was discovered in Vermont, more than 500 feet above sea level; and still another in the Montreal- Quebec area, about 600 feet above sea level. Although the Humphrey whale and beluga occasionally enter the mouth of the St. Lawrence, they do not climb hills.
Times and Dates, pages 202-203 -- Careful investigation by W.A. Johnston of the Niagara River bed disclosed that the present channel was cut by the falls less than 4,000 years ago. And equally careful investigation of the Bear River delta by Hanson showed that the age of this delta was 3,600 years. The study by Claude Jones of the lakes of the Great Basin showed that these lakes, remnants of larger glacial lakes, have existed only about 3,500 years. Gales obtained the same result on Owen Lake in California and also Van Winkle on Abert and Summer lakes in Oregon. Radiocarbon analysis by Libby also indicates that plants associated with extinct animals (mastodons) in Mexico are probably only 3,500 years old. Similar conclusions concerning the late survival of the Pleistocene fauna were drawn by various field workers in many parts of the American continent. Suess and Rubin found with the help of radiocarbon analysis that in the mountains of the western United States ice advanced only 3000 years ago. The Florida fossil beds at Vero and Melbourne proved - - by the artifacts found there, together with human bones and the remains of animals, many of which are extinct -- that these fossil beds were deposited between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago. From observations on beaches in numerous places all over the world, Daly concluded that there was a change in the ocean level, which dropped sixteen to twenty feet 3,500 years ago. Kuenen and others confirmed Daly's findings with evidence derived from Europe.
Dropped Ocean Level, pages 181-183 R.A. -- Daly observed that in a great many places all around the world there is a uniform emergence of the shore line of 18 to 20 feet. In the southwest Pacific, on the islands belonging to the Samoan group but spread over two hundred miles, the same emergence is evident. Nearly halfway around the world, at St. Helena in the South Atlantic, the lava is punctuated by dry sea caves, the floors of which are covered with water-worn pebbles, now dusty because untouched by the surf. The emergence there is also 20 feet. At the Cape of Good Hope, caves and beaches also prove recent and sensibly uniform emergence to the extent of about 20 feet. Marine terraces, indicating similar emergence, are found along the Atlantic coast from New York to the Gulf of Mexico; for at least 1,000 miles along the coast of eastern Australia; along the coasts of Brazil, southwest Africa, and many islands in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. The emergence is recent as well as of the same order of magnitude, (20 feet). Judging from the condition of beaches, terraces, and caves, the emergence seems to have been simultaneous on every shore. In (Daly's) opinion, the cause lies in the sinking of the level of all seas on the globe. Alternatively, Daly thinks it could have resulted from a deepening of the oceans or from an increase in their areas. Of special interest is the time of the change. Daly estimated the sudden drop of oceanic level to (have occurred) some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago.
Shifting Poles, pages 111, 44, and 46 -- All other theories of the origin of the Ice Age having failed, there remained an avenue of approach which already early in the discussion was chosen by several geologists: a shift in the terrestrial poles. If for some reason the poles had moved, old polar ice would have moved out of the Arctic and Antarctic circles and into new regions. The glacial cover of the Ice Age could have been the polar ice cap of an earlier epoch. The continent of Antarctica is larger than Europe. It has not a single tree, not a single bush, not a single blade of grass. Very few fungi have been found. Storms of great velocity circle the Antarctic most of the year. E.H. Shackleton, during his expedition to Antarctica in 1907 found fossil wood in the sandstone. Then he discovered 7 seams of coal. The seams are each between 3 and 7 feet thick. Associated with the coal is sandstone containing coniferous wood. Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean is as far north from Oslo in Norway as Oslo is from Naples. Heer identified 136 species of fossil plants from Spitsbergen. Among the plants were pines, firs, spruces, and cypresses, also elms, hazels, and water lilies. At the northernmost tip of Spitsbergen Archipelago, a bed of black and lustrous coal 25 to 30 feet thick was found. (Spitsbergen) is buried in darkness for half the year and is now almost continuously buried under snow and ice. At some time in the remote past corals grew and are still found on the entire fringe of polar North America -- in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. In later times, fig palms bloomed within the Arctic Circle.
Sea and Land Changed Places, pages 14, 74, and 180 -- (Cuvier) found in the gypsum deposits in the suburbs of Paris marine limestone containing over eight hundred species of shells, all of them marine. Under this limestone there is another -- fresh water -- deposit formed of clay. Much of France was once under sea; then it was land, populated by land reptiles; then it became sea again and was populated by marine animals; then it was land again, inhabited by mammals. And as it was on the site of Paris, so it was in other parts of France, and in other countries of Europe. The Himalayas, highest mountains in the world, rise like a thousand mile long wall north of India. Many of its peaks tower over 20,000 feet, Mount Everest reaching 29,000 feet. Scientists of the nineteenth century were dismayed to find that, as high as they climbed, the rocks of the massifs yielded skeletons of marine animals, fish that swim in the ocean, and shells of mollusks. This was evidence that the Himalayas had risen from beneath the sea. In many places of the world, the seacoast shows either submerged or raised beaches. The previous surf line is seen on the rock of raised beaches; where the coast became submerged, the earlier water line is found chiseled by the surf in the rock below the present level of the sea. In the case of the Pacific coast of Chile, Charles Darwin observed that the beach must have risen 1300 feet only recently -- within the period during which upraised shells have remained undecayed on the surface.
Floods -- The Flood, by Charles Ginenthal
The evidence I present below is a melange of data regarding more than one global flood. Apparently, the earlier global floods occurred when major ice caps covered the continents, and later floods occurred after these were destroyed. Recent findings verify that such global floods occurred and negate the uniformitarian argument that the flood evidence indicates only local flood episodes. The basic uniformitarian argument is that the great floods were unique events caused by ice-dammed lakes unleashed when the ice dams broke. However, if individual, localized floods occurred repeatedly during the last Ice Age, they would have washed away the whale fossils found on or near the earth surface. However, whale bones and other marine fossils have been found far inland, without having been either destroyed or eroded down to tiny fragments. This strongly supports the global flood hypothesis and contradicts the local flood theory. This evidence fully supports Velikovsky's hypothesis. If the Earth's axis tilted or the crust suddenly, violently, moved over the mantle, then the oceans would move en masse, as immense tidal waves, away from the equator and toward the poles. On the rotating Earth, due to the Coriolis force, these tidal waves would move, not only north and south, but also counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. Since the Pacific Ocean lies between the continents of North America and Asia in the northern hemisphere, and the continental coastlines form an inverted V (/ \) with its apex at the Bering Strait, the tidewater would veer east, over Alaska and Canada, and west, over Asia. In the Atlantic Ocean, the tidewater would flow more easily near the poles, covering a larger area; this would create smaller continental floods. Any ice caps in these regions would be swept away from their landlocked moorings out into the northern Atlantic Ocean and would break up, depositing large amounts of detritus on the sea bed. Since neither eastern Siberia nor Alaska were covered by such a continental ice sheet, minute amounts of glacial detritus should have been deposited in the Pacific Ocean compared to that laid down in the Atlantic Ocean.
Climate Changes in Prehistory and History
Switzerland Climate Changes in Prehistory and History, By Ken Hsu -- Studying the varves of Silva plana, my student Andreas Lehmann found no Holocene varves older than 4000 years, when there was no "glacial-milk" sediment.. The conclusion is inescapable: There were no varves because the Engadine lakes were not frozen every year. There were no "glacial milk" deposits when there were no Alpine glaciers! I was excited by Lehmann's discovery and called my former student Dr. Kerry Kelts at Minnesota. He headed our Limnology Laboratory at ETH-Z before accepting a professorship at University of Minnesota. Kelts was not surprised. He told me daily: "I have been telling you all those years of the 4000 BP event, and you did not listen. There was a global cooling when the Climatic Optimum came to an end.
North Africa Climate Changes in Prehistory and History, By Ken Hsu -- Prof. Nicola Petit-Maire, at University of Marseilles, described the vast lacustrine deposits in the Sahara desert: the sediments were laid down during a humid phase between 9,500 to 4,000 BP. Rainfall was so abundant then that Mali was not a desert but land of great lakes. The Cro-Magnon people came across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain to the savannas of Sahara. They hunted elephants, rhinoceros, buffaloes, hippopotamus, antelopes, and giraffes, as depicted in their wonderful rock paintings. The deserts of North Africa expanded, however, and an early clustering of cold centuries around 5200 BP caused the deterioration of environments. Hunters and grazers left Sahara and settled on as farmers of the alluvial plains of Egypt. The cooling and aridity continued and the last of the Saharan lakes dried up 4,000 BP, ending the Saharan civilization, at about the same time when the glaciers advanced in the Alps. Mild and wet climate prevailed during the Climatic Optimum in the Near East. I visited the Canannite City Arad on the edge of the Negev Desert: it was a populous settlement of several thousand inhabitants during the Early Bronze Age. Suddenly Arad was abandoned. The deserted city showed no signs of destruction by war; the exodus was necessitated by a shortage of water supply. Indeed, the centuries- long drought in the Middle East was the cause of the collapse of the Early Bronze Age civilization in Mesopotamia, as Prof. H. Weiss of Yale and his colleagues concluded. A marked increase in aridity caused the abandonment of settlements in the north and the collapse of the Akkadian Empire in the south. The impact of it was extensive: there were synchronous collapses of the civilizations in Hindus Valley and in Egypt. The climatic catastrophe started around 2200 BC and came to an end 300 years later. This was the expression of the 4000 BP Event in Middle East.
Central Europe Climate Changes in Prehistory and History, By Ken Hsu -- In central Europe, the 4,000 BP Event brought, not aridity, but increased precipitation. The cold and wet climate caused the advance of the Alpine glaciers. In the region of Prealpine lakes, the Lake Dwellers had enjoyed warm and dry climate, and they had built villages on the shores of lowland lakes. When the cold and wet climate came, the settlements were flooded; the Lake Dwellers had to leave their homes when the lake-level rose. The Zurich archaeologists discovered, for example, that the villages on the shores of the lake were abandoned about 2,400 BC, and they remained uninhabited for about 800 years. In northern Europe, cattle farming had brought prosperity to the megalithic kingdoms. The 4000 BP Event brought forth late springs and cold and wet summers. Crops were not harvested because of late planting, and cattle were famished when it became impossible to make hays. The Indo-Europeans of northern Europe had to move. Carrying battle axes and corded-ware pottery, they went to southern Russia, from there to southeastern Europe, to Anatolia, to Persia and India. and to northwest China.
China Climate Changes in Prehistory and History, By Ken Hsu -- The 4000 BP event hit China also. When the legendary King Huangti ruled in China, at about 3,000 BCE, mulberry trees grew in north China where elephants and rhinoceros roamed. The climate turned cold and arid then. Yu, the first king of the Xia Dynasty, received credit for having tamed devastating floods. He may in fact not have done more than his predecessors, except flooding eased when rainstorms ceased their visitation. India -- Academic Press Insight, 5 April, 1999, by Diana Steele The people of the Harrapan-Indus civilization, who lived in what is now northwestern India, flourished between 2600 and 2000 B.C. To probe the region's climate history, a team of geologists from Israel, the United States, and India used carbon-dating and chemical analysis to examine sediments from a now-dry lake, Lunkaransar, in the Thar Desert. As the level of the briny lake fell, salts and other minerals precipitated in distinct layers. "These lake sediments give a very high-resolution record of changing lake levels, which reflect changing amounts of precipitation in the region," says Lisa Ely, a geologist at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Ely and her colleagues found that the lake has been mostly dry for the last 5500 years. Before then, they found, the region was wet for 15 centuries -- a period that ended a millennium before the Harrapan-Indus peoples began to prosper. But an arid climate by no means rules out a healthy civilization, notes Blair Kling, a historian at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Even without plentiful rain, the Harrapan- Indus inhabitants, he says, could have depended on the Indus River for irrigation. Kling says there is evidence that a flood may have forced refugees into the cities around 1600 B.C., leading to overcrowding that could have played a role in the civilization's downfall.
Sahara -- In the July 15, 1999 paper published by the journal, Geophysical Research Letters, the Sahara desert's arid climate change occurred quickly and dramatically 4000 to 3600 years ago. A team of researchers headed by Martin Cluassen of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact research analyzed computer models of climate over the past several thousand years. They concluded that the change to today's desert climate in the Sahara was triggered by changes in the Earth's orbit and the tilt of Earth's axis. The switch in North Africa's climate and vegetation was abrupt. In the Sahara, "we find an abrupt decrease in vegetation from a green Sahara to a desert shrub land within a few hundred years" scientists reported. No longer were grasses and other plants collecting water and releasing it back into the atmosphere; now sand baked in the stronger sun and rivers dried up. The scientists do not say what caused the change in the tilt of Earth's axis.
"3,600 Years Ago --The Canaanites' earliest real presence was 1550 BC (Source: The Canaanites, by John Grey). According to the World Book Encyclopedia, an unknown civilization with an alphabet that has yet to be deciphered lived in the Indus Valley (W. Pakistan). Around 1500 BC they disappeared. Around 1500 BC, a civilization arose on the banks of the Hwang Ho river in north central China. According to Encarta, The 1st dynasty of Babylon ended in 1595 BC. In the Semitic culture, Hyksos was deposed in 1570 BC, and the Jewish exodus led by Moses happened shortly thereafter. This featured a river Nile filled with "blood" and water they could not drink. The Cycladic settlement on the island of Thera was destroyed by a great volcanic eruption about 1500 BC. Hittite internal strife caused great disorder and ended in 1525 BC with King Telipinu. China gave birth to one of the earliest civilizations and has a recorded history that dates from some 3,500 years ago. Pottery pieces found in Fiji suggest the islands were settled in the west from Melanesia at least 3,500 years ago. Iron manufacturing originated about 3,500 years ago when iron ore was accidentally heated in the presence of charcoal. The Tongon and Samoan islands were probably settled from Fiji about 3,500 years ago. According to M.I. Farley, author of Early Greece, 1970, there was total catastrophe all over Crete about 1400 BC. The Santorini eruption (about 1500 BC) was several times greater in scope than the 1883 Krakatoa eruption. The book Ancient Europe, by Stuart Pigget (1965) states that around 1500 BC, Zimbabwe and Dhlodhlo were built. According to Earth in Upheaval, by Velikovsky, Research by W. A. Johnston on the Niagara Riverbed disclosed that the present channel was cut by the falls less than 4000 years ago. Careful study of the Bear River delta by Hanson showed the age of this delta was 3,600 years. A study by Claude Jones of the Great Lakes showed that these lakes have existed only 3,500 years. This is confirmed by several geographic historical maps of Michigan available in Michigan libraries. Gales obtained the same result on Owen Lake in California. Van Winkle obtained the same result on Abert and Summer lakes in Oregon. Radiocarbon analysis by Libby also indicates that plants associated with mastodons in Mexico are probably only 3,500 years old. Similar conclusions concerning the late survival of the Pleistocene fauna were drawn by various field workers in many parts of the American continent. From observations on beaches throughout the world, Daly concluded that there was a change in the ocean level, which dropped sixteen to twenty feet 3,500 years ago. Kuenen and others confirmed Daly's findings with evidence derived from Europe.
According to Stuart Struever and Felicia Antonelli Holton, authors of the Koster Settlement in Koster, IL. "It is apparent that people occupied Horizon 4 for a much shorter time and less intensely than the other levels." They were referring to the site that began in 2000 BC. Other earlier sites ranged from 3900-2800 BC, and then 5000 BC. 7,200 Years Ago -- According to Basil Davidson, author of Lost Cities of Africa, new types of humanity appeared in Africa around 5,000 BC (3500 x2). According to Ancient Europe by Stuart Pigget, stone using agricultural peasantry began in Europe near 5,500 BC (3750 x 2). According to a December 17, 1996 New York Times article entitled, Black Sea Deluge May Be Tied to Spread of Farming in Europe, an international team of geologists and oceanographers reconstructed the history of a catastrophic flood from data gathered by a Russian research ship in 1993. Seismic soundings and sediment cores revealed traces of the sea's former shorelines, showing an abrupt 500 foot rise in water levels. Radiocarbon dating of the transition from fresh water to marine organisms in the cores put the time of the event at about 7,700 years ago (5,500 BC). According to the September 10, 1996 issue of the Seattle Times: the research ship JOIDES (Joint Oceanographic Institutions for the Deep Earth Sampling) Resolution "could easily see the light colored ash deposited from the eruption of Oregon's Mount Mazama 6,950 years ago. That titanic eruption created Crater Lake and threw out at least 40 times as much magma as Mount St. Helens did in 1980 and serves as a useful marker to date mud layers. JOIDES is a Hubble telescope for the ocean, the most advanced drilling vessel in the world. "It has 12 laboratories, more than 100 research computers and can drill in water up to 27,000 feet deep." ... "The planet appears to operate in a quasi-stable mode and pops up to a new state," said NSF's Corell. Other Cycles -- According to the September 10, 1996 issue of the Seattle Times, The lodge pole pine forest suddenly died 10,900 years ago (3633 x 3). "The weather here changed so fast and so severely that the forest of the lodge pole pine that had succeeded Ice Age glaciers died in a blink." ... "This is catastrophic climate change", said paleobotanist Richard Hebda.
Ice Age glaciers retreated from the Seattle area 14,000 years ago (3500 x 4). Page 22-23 of Early Man in the New World, by Kenneth MacGowan (1950), shows charts of major glacial changes 18,000 years ago (3600 x 5), 25,000 years ago (3570 x 7), 40,000 years ago (3636 x 11), and 65,000 years ago (3611 x18)! According to Encarta, The Dalton era started about 10,500 (3500 x 3) years ago and lasted about 1,000 years in Arkansas. The first animals used in husbandry were domesticated in southwest Asia 11,000 years ago (3636 x 3). Most sequoias suffered extinction 11,000 years ago (3636 x 3) About 11,000 years ago (3636 x 3), the axis of the earth pointed so as to give the northern hemisphere colder winters and warmer summers. Norway was inhabited 14,000 (3500 x 5) years ago. Indianapolis is located on the Tipton Till Plain, an area of flat to gently rolling land shaped 18,000 (3600 x 5) years ago. The peak of the last ice age was 22,000 (3667 x 6) years ago. The Great Salt Lake is a shallow remnant of Lake Bonneville, a large deep fresh water lake that occupied much of western Utah and parts of Nevada and Idaho from approximately 50,000 (3571 x 14) years ago to approximately 25,000 (3571 x 7) years ago. According to an October 9, 1998 article from the Associated Press and Science magazine, a major ice age occurred 22,000 years ago (6 x 3666).
Tsunami Signatures -- From Geo Science, "Tsunami Along the South Coast of NSW": The first event probably occurred concomitantly with the rise of Holocene sea-level near modern levels around 7000 BP. ...The impact of these tsunami upon the coastal landscape has been profound. Several signatures provide estimates of the magnitude of run-up of these events. The height to which chaotic mixes of sediment and imbricated boulder stacks have been deposited and the height of headlands that have had a smear of clay, sand, and shell plastered across them give general estimates of the run-up height. The elevation of eroded landscape features on headlands gives information about the depth and velocity of flow. The presence of sand laminae and splayed sand units within deltaic sediments permit the landward limit of tsunami impact to be determined. This geomorphic evidence indicates that the largest tsunami waves swept sediment across the continental shelf and obtained flow depths of 15- 20 m at the coastline with velocities in excess of 10 meters per second. Along cliffs, and especially at Jervis Bay, waves reached elevations of 40-100 m with evidence of flow depths in excess of 15 m. Preliminary evidence on the Shoalhaven delta indicates that waves penetrated 10 km inland for at least one event. This geomorphic evidence suggests that the New South Wales south coast is subject to tsunami waves an order of magnitude greater than that indicated by historic tide gauge records. Recent work indicates that the southeast coast of Australia may not be the only coast to be affected by catastrophic tsunami. The geomorphic signatures of such events have been found on Lord Howe Island in the mid-Tasman Sea, along the north Queensland coast and along the northwest coast of Western Australia. At the latter location, there is good evidence that a recent wave swept more than 30 km inland, in the process topping 60 m high hills more than 2 km from the coast. Finally, bedrock sculpturing features have been identified on the islands of Hawaii and along the east coast of Scotland. The latter location is within the zone affected by the tsunami generated by a large submarine landslide near Storegga, Norway, also 7,000 years ago. Friday, 7 September, 2001, 18:28 GMT 19:28 UK Giant wave hit ancient Scotland --By BBC News O
" The Santorini eruption (about 1500 BC) was several times greater in scope than the 1883 Krakatoa eruption. "
This has now been conclusively dated to 1628BC.
BTW, I have some 7,500 year old wood that was dredged up out of Santa Rosa Sound, Florida. It was once part of a coastal cypress swamp 7,500 years ago. That's when I think the Gulf Of Mexico was re-flooded like the Black Sea.