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What Caused a 1300-Year Deep Freeze?
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Things were looking up for Earth about 12,800 years ago. The last Ice Age was coming to an end, mammoths and other large mammals romped around North America, and humans were beginning to settle down and cultivate wild plants. Then, suddenly, the planet plunged into a deep freeze, returning to near-glacial temperatures for more than a millennium before getting warm again. The mammoths disappeared at about the same time, as did a major Native American culture that thrived on hunting them. A persistent band of researchers has blamed this apparent disaster on the impact of a comet or asteroid, but a new study concludes that the real explanation for the chill, at least, may lie strictly with Earth-bound events."
Seriously, is there any tech-savvy person out there that feels we can't cope with a temp shift of a few degrees? For fuck's sake - STOP.
Er.. I mean Climate Disruption.. yeah, that's it.
I was Fred Flinstone and all those fuckers in bedrock burning that brontosaurus oil!
Pre-industrial society ... nice and cold!
Global Warming
you almost need a score sheet for all of the times science disproves itself. but, i guess that means it's working
^ Probably Sarcasm...
Come on, it was because the cavemen where not burning enough of the rainforest to keep the world warm. It was their OWN fault.
Sorry, had to be said. And speaking of GoT, has anyone worked out a model of their solar system? Sure, I could use teh Google, but what fun would that be?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Cold weather.
My invoice is in the mail.
"The prevailing theory is that the Younger Dryas was caused by significant reduction or shutdown of the North Atlantic "Conveyor", which circulates warm tropical waters northward, in response to a sudden influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz and deglaciation in North America. Geological evidence for such an event is thus far lacking. The global climate would then have become locked into the new state until freezing removed the fresh water "lid" from the north Atlantic Ocean. An alternative theory suggests instead that the jet stream shifted northward in response to the changing topographic forcing of the melting North American ice sheet, bringing more rain to the North Atlantic which freshened the ocean surface enough to slow the thermohaline circulation. There is also some evidence that a solar flare may have been responsible for the megafaunal extinction, though it cannot explain the apparent variability in the extinction across all continents." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y...
It's interesting that this comes on the same day that low-information journalists are panicked because "the melt that has started could eventually add 4 to 12 feet to current sea levels."
Apparently they're not aware that this is trivial compared to what nature dishes out. During the Last Glacial Maximum (only ~23,000 years ago), sea level was 400 feet lower than it is today.
Every species that's alive today, including polar bears, managed to survive that massive 400-ft increase in sea level.
In fact, every species that's alive today has managed to survive dozens of glacial advances and glacial retreats -- each one of which caused massive fluctuations in sea level.
The low-information voters and low-information journalists also seem unaware that the natural and normal state of the earth is to not have any polar ice caps whatsoever. The only reason Earth currently has polar ice caps is because the Quaternary glaciation (i.e., the most recent ice age) is not completely over; we are still emerging from it.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
This headline promises a lot, but delivers nothing. The article just looks briefly at the controversy -- in other words, we still don't know.
This comes from a good Journal, but reading it was a waste of time.
Well, it's really the rate of sea level rise that's the issue. Adding 4 to 12 feet to current sea levels "eventually" over 10000 years is no problem. Adding 4 to 12 feet to current sea levels "eventually" in the 2100s is a different matter entirely.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Those pants make your ass look fat.
Have gnu, will travel.
If Al Gore-like shamans lived back then, the insufficient fervor of the rival shamans in keeping the fires going all day and night would've been blamed for the freeze.
Anybody failing to keep their fire going would be shamed and punished — unless they paid tribute (to buy global freezing offset credits) to the right shaman, of course.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Nobody is going to pay you to move your operation. Your business will fail, and we can finally stop churning out absurd amounts of corn. Probably a good result since most of it just feeds livestock.
Old Argument (Younger Dryas): We found iridium (rare on earth but abundant in meteorites), nanodiamonds and magnetic particles covering ancient tools and mammoth remains at sites which we believe are around 12,000 years old. Therefore, we believe a cosmic collision caused the 1,300 year deep-freeze.
New Argument: We performed radiocarbon dating on tools found at the 29 sites described in the Old Argument and found that only 3 of the 29 sites were around 12,000 years old. The tools at other sites were much older or younger. Therefore, the deep-freeze was probably not caused by a cosmic collision.
It won't be expensive, I'll just make my children pay for it like they are currently paying to sustain my early retirement age and current standard of living.
Fuck You Got Mine,
-- The Baby Boomer Generation
This was caused by my ex- wife..
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
Because I said so.
We had to black out the sky to cut off their access to solar energy. We eventually won and abandoned modern technology, but effects of the blackout on the climate could not be overcome.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Someone predicted AGW, and the ancient civilization overcorrected, and were wiped out.
I remember hearing Wally Broecker talk about the ice dam + flooding hypothesis back in the mid-1990s (or possibly earlier).
#DeleteChrome
Not even close - around 1C since 1840 - try again: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/trend
1300-year conflicts with "12,800 years ago"
So you either meant "13000 year deep freeze" in the headline, or the summary should read 1,280 years ago.
In the latter case, you probably meant 734 C.E. so you'd have said that. Therefore, I assume the headline is in error.
Non computertech numbskulls play intelligent. It's like seeing baboons attempt speech!
Dinosaurs overreacted to a global warming scare and scavenged so much CO2 into the soil, they cause an almost irreversible global cooling. And that boys and girls is why we have so much oil and coal now.
Your great^n grandmother's ice-cold vagina
DRINK!
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Don't you Foxbots have anything better to say than AAAAALLLLL GOOOOORRRRRE!?
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
If you want healthy food, then you need healthy nutrients in the soil.
... and it may actually reach that end in the next couple of thousand years.
(You all do know that the ice caps did not exist before the most recent ice age, right? And, that the oceans were correspondingly far deeper, right? And, that Earth's natural, most common historic state is that of a temperate climate pole to pole, right?)
It's amazing how much we don't know and guess at (an educated guess is still a guess).
The article said the prevailing explanation is extra-terrestrial in nature, and says that the theory doesn't fit all the evidence, but the article doesn't come right out and claim any alternate theory. Weak article.
The article might as well have been written by an Anonymous Coward posting a scientific paper stating "You're wrong" and "I know more than you so shut-up".
Beta again - for Jeebus's sake, quit putting the stiry in Beta after I choose classic site!
Are you -all really that type of "special" that you have to keep doing this?
Is upper management so determined to truly make the site die or turn into a
smaller ( and less profitable for ad-clicks ) version of the old classic site?
Has anyone there ever decided to actually use their common sense about how things should
appear after a user chooses classic?
Obviously, Retardo Montalban has reproduced in this area....
The article in question is basically a "the science does not support an extraterrestrial impact but then concludes that the impact is what caused the events to happen". Huh?
I've written worse, granted. But the whole article seemed to be dismissing the impact cause, and declaring other causes were not evaluated and seeming to postulate a new understanding. And then, in the end, it really seemed to simply be an article questioning the carbon dating, and pointing to sedimentary record as a preferred method of dating and demonstrating an impact wiped everything out.
Huh...what?
a bigger boat.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/3049/
Check out the elevation map. South Louisiana would be in trouble. Central Louisiana would become the new coast. North Louisiana would be just fine.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
And some government funding baked in. I just can't wait to eat the gene splicing an/or GMO stuff, mmm, mm, good.
He is crazy if you think about it; I am not.
http://remineralize.org/
"Better soil, better food, better planet.... We see a future of thriving farms and gardens producing healthy, nutrient-dense food in great abundance. We see exuberant forests returned to a state of grandeur not seen in centuries, silently sequestering the carbon dioxide that so threatens our planet today. We see a stable climate and a cleaner, healthier environment. We see all of this being possible through the simple and effective process of soil remineralization."
Indoor agriculture is also becoming more feasible with LED lighting -- and perhaps someday soon hot or cold fusion power. Example (but from a vendor of related technology, so no-doubt biased): ... Despommier says a stacked hydroponic operation might yield about 64 heads of lettuce per square foot annually, compared to about three heads at a traditional outside farm. ... Cityscape CEO Mike Yohay predicts that by eliminating transportation costs and fertilizer, a 10,000-square-foot greenhouse could produce $500,000 in profit and 20 to 30 tons of food a year for local supermarkets and corporate cafeterias."
http://www.terraspheresystems....
"One such indoor farm opened in September in Vancouver, growing lettuce and spinach inside an 8,000-square-foot warehouse using a hydroponic system that replaces dirt and weather with peat moss plugs and circulated water. High-efficiency LED lighting hits plants grown on stacked shelves.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The Earth is only 6000 years old. Watch Kent Hovinds movies.
I'm glad you brought up the rate of sea level rise. Here's a NOAA dataset that begins in 1855, when humans had had hardly any impact on atmospheric CO2 levels.
The slope of the line then was 2.77 mm/year, and the slope of the line in 2010 was unchanged, 2.77 mm/year. The only thing that's anthropogenic is the fear mongering.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I'm sure that everyone will be fairly compensated for their lost property holdings, especially the poor
Aren't you quite the fearmonger? The poor don't own oceanfront property. The Occupy Wall Street crowd ought to love global warming, because it will greatly reduce inequality: the oceanfront properties owned by the 1% will become worthless, and the more mundane properties owned by the 99% will gain value.
I'm not holding my breath, though. Al Gore himself bought oceanfront property in recent years, which shows pretty conclusively that he doesn't believe his own predictions.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
There are vast tracts of land in Canada, Alaska and Siberia where you can't grow food because it's too cold (and few people want to live there). Global warming will result in a net increase in food resources and desirable real estate.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Fascinating overview of lands that have been submerged by non-anthropogenic global warming!
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Look at the NOAA dataset that begins in 1855, when humans had had hardly any impact on atmospheric CO2 levels.
The slope of the line then was 2.77 mm/year, and the slope of the line in 2010 was unchanged, 2.77 mm/year. I predict the trend will continue: 100 yrs from now it will still be 2.77 mm/yr (or 0.9 feet per century), regardless of CO2 levels. That's not a significant threat to the major cities.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Look at the NOAA dataset that begins in 1855, when humans had had hardly any impact on atmospheric CO2 levels.
The slope of the line then was 2.77 mm/year, and the slope of the line in 2010 was unchanged, 2.77 mm/year. I predict the trend will continue: 100 yrs from now it will still be 2.77 mm/yr (or 0.9 feet per century), regardless of CO2 levels. That's not going to cause a significant number of people to move..
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Look at this data that correlates well with the cycles of glacial advances and retreats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
Do you imagine that humankind somehow has the ability to put a stop to that cycle?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
The slope of the line then was 2.77 mm/year, and the slope of the line in 2010 was unchanged, 2.77 mm/year. I predict the trend will continue: 100 yrs
Irrelevant on so many levels.
Firstly, and fundamentally, the question here is not what will happen. The question is whether the sea levels "During the Last Glacial Maximum" put into perspective the "worrisome outcomes" a 4-12 ft rise in sea level would have, such that anyone reporting on a probable 4-12ft sea level rise within the next millennium without mentioning sea levels during the last glacial maximum might reasonably be suspected of being ignorant thereof.
Secondly, even if we were concerned with actual outcomes predicted by the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet you are dealing with the wrong time period. The relevant period is most likely 200-500 and possibly up to 1000 years.
Thirdly your "analysis" has entirely failed to incorporate the very subject, namely the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet and the predicted 4-12ft rise in sea levels this is estimated to cause. A 12ft sea-level rise will not inundate any city?! Really?
Finally your extrapolation, even without taking into consideration the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet, flies in the face of accepted science (for which see Layzej's responses). OK that's not, (having ignored your fundamental lack of relevance), strictly an irrelevance, it's just ...
Sigh ... the very reason I framed my original comment an ironic snipe, was to avoid engagement with impertinent nitwits ....
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
During the last 23,000 years, sea level rose 400 feet. I won't cast aspersions by calling you a marketer, but how can you, with a straight face, call that a "nice flat line"?!
That that is is that that that that is not is not.