[blam]

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), 18,000 - 23,000 years ago was one of the coldest periods of the entire Ice Age.

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[MondoQueen]

Here in Southern Wisconsin, on the border with Illinois, the land was covered in ice, except for a small section of the state just above the Illinois border and just east of the Mississippi. I believe they called it the "driftless" area. But it all melted! Can anyone tell us what caused all that ice to melt 20,000 years ago, before the age of autos and the burning of fossil fuels?

[RightWhale]

Alaska is large enough that it is in several different climatic zones. The areas of glaciation are to the south for the most part, where the mountains meet the moist ocean air. The interior is much drier and was not glaciated during the recent ice age. The interior would, except there are no mammoths or sabertooth tigers now, have been very similar then and now. There might be white spruce in the interior, but most spruce are black spruce that on shallow permafrost grow very slowly and don't get large at all. Summer plants such as fireweed grow very quickly, mature overnight and go to seed immediately, as might be appropriate for a region that has a short, cool growing season at best.

[Renfield]

Coastal Alaska during the Wisconsinian maximum was not as cold as Ohio. There were plenty of refugia.

[Renfield]

Blam--Please ping me tomorrow or Tuesday to post my review RE: the Markewich & Markewich paper on Pleistocene dunes in the Carolinas & Georgia.

[RightWhale]

It might be noted that the leaves are changing with some vigor as of today. They started a couple weeks ago in the willow, but it is also beginning in other deciduous species and certainly in leafy plants.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam. I guess this is pingworthy.

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[xcamel]

The last boreal american black pine only died out 50 years ago (there was rumored to be a stand on my property in the 1920's)

That species was the "glacial" version of ponderosa pine. It finally died out as the climate got too warm, and deciduous trees took over the canopy. I believe american black pine is now extinct.

[GoLightly]

Far fetched, but... The pollen came in from another location. Meanwhile, seeds were frozen & preserved during the ice age. Any surviving seeds would have "older DNA".