Prehistoric Deep Freeze Occurred in One Year!
It's one of the most dramatic examples of climate change in Earth's history, and scientists now say it happened almost entirely in one year's time.
A drastic cooling of the climate in western Europe happened exactly 12,679 years ago, scientists said, giving a hint of how abruptly the climate can change. The study, of pollens, minerals and other matter deposited in annual layers at the bottom of Lake Meerfelder Maar in Germany, pinpointed an abrupt change in sediments consistent with a sudden chill over just one year.
"Our data indicate an abrupt increase in storminess during the autumn to spring seasons, occurring from one year to the next at 12,679 years before the present," they wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience.
TAGS: Arctic, climate change, global warming, natural geoscience, Ross Gelbspan, ross gelbspan, Science
Translation . . .
Perhaps we should concentrate on verified problems rather than wasting resources on 'climate change' that in the past was so dramatic without our intervention which proves beyond doubt that our actions are insignificant to change what nature wants to do. My vote is potable water for the planet.
Do you understand the connection between potable water and AGW?
Interesting that you want to spend money on ensuring the supply of potable water. Unfortunately, the supply of potable water will be drastically curtailed by AGW.
Floods will contaminate water and droughts will end the supply.
Funny (but predictable) that you never made the connection.
Ian Forrester
Hey Ian, I was wondering you
Hey Ian, I was wondering you posted once about a timeline of volcanic events, or am I mistaken?....this this event line up with any major volcanic eruptions? Thoughts?
Data base only goes back to 11,858 BP
I did a quick check but their data base only goes back to 11,858 BP.
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/find_eruptions.cfm
If other data bases are available they would be worth checking.
Ian Forrester
causes
From the first of the articles linked in the post:
"The same was probably true just before the Yonger Dryas set in. But as the vast Ice Age glaciers retreated, their melt water flowed into the northern reaches of the Atlantic Ocean. The injection of fresh water made the sea easier to freeze, and a new skin of ice began advancing south."
As far as I can tell, the main novelty here is the focus on sea ice and wind patterns:
"Winds tend to blow parallel to temperature gradients, and the gradient between sea ice and open water can be very sharp, up to 40 degrees C.
The sea ice border probably extended in a rough west to east direction, and the winds would've followed it, bringing cold air to much of Europe."
Otherwise I don't think it's different from what a layperson should have understood (from wikipedia):
"Climatologists believe that a major outbreak of Lake Agassiz in about 11000 BC drained through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean. This may be the cause of the Younger Dryas stadial. A return of the ice for some time offered a reprieve, and after retreating north of the Canadian border about 9,900 years ago it refilled. These events had significant impact on climate, sea level and possible early human civilization.
Much of the final drainage of Lake Agassiz may have occurred in a very short time—perhaps as little as one year. Recent studies by British scientist Chris Turney link this rapid drainage and subsequent global sea level rise of about one meter to the expansion of agriculture in Europe, as well as the various flood myths of prehistoric cultures including the biblical flood.[1]"
The problem with that
The problem with that reasoning is that it's obvious from this discovery that we can have very little control over the climate. Yet we can provide infrastructure to help millions with clean water in very little time with the cash being dumped in to AGW hysteria.
It is not obvious at all
All that this demonstrates is that sudden dramatic changes can occur naturally. I don't think that anyone ever suggested that wasn't the case. But it's a completely different issue from AGW. In the present case, we are producing an artificial and very dangerous change in the chemical balance of the atmosphere. Very likely it was a similar imbalance 12,000 years ago, produced by some natural mega-event. This time, human beings are creating the mega-event all by themselves.
Fern Mackenzie
Rapid Climate Change
This is not the only study that shows rapid climate change. We are talking about changes of 10 degrees over a year or decade. To think. How the hell did all the vulnerable wildlife (including the pinup polar bear) manage to survive such catastrophic (as if) changes when we are being told a 6 degree change over a century is going to make them extinct because the warming is too rapid?!
lots didn't survive
Geez, do some research on the extinctions that occurred.
Apples and oranges...
Polar bears would survive a fast freeze. That's the environment to which they have adapted.
extinctions?
"Geez, do some research on the extinctions that occurred."
1. We are talking about a rapid cooling during the Holocene (12679ybp) not the cooling into an ice age. There were no mass extinctions 12679 years ago. There were extinctions when the earth warmed rapidly coming out of the last ice age but still not on a massively global scale. It is generally agreed that there have been 5 known mass extinctions the last of which was 65 million years ago.
2. As for polar bears, they have sustained both rapid warming (previous interglacial to this one) and rapid cooling. The fact is the polar bear is a proven survivor of both global warming and global cooling. Currently, most of the polar bear populations are either stable or increasing. There are more polar bears today than 30 years ago.
1. Who said anything about
1. Who said anything about "mass" extinctions?
If "There were extinctions when the earth warmed rapidly coming out of the last ice age...", wouldn't you think there would extinctions because of a fast freeze?
2. According to Wicki, of the 19 recognized polar bear population groups: 5 are declining, 5 are stable, 2 are increasing and 7 groups have insufficient data.
Big Picture!!!
Oh, I see: You're talking about extinctions that happened in 1 specific year because of a newly discovered (via pollen proxies) climatological effect experienced in parts of Western Europe. I can tell that you're really into the big picture regarding rapid climate change and extinctions, and you're clearly not just pursuing talking points that support your worldview/agenda. So let's start with "no mass extinctions 12679 years ago ... on a massively global scale".
I envision a very recently thawed Western Europe, with warm-adapted organisms still advancing poleward from the south, and then -- BANG -- an incredible cold snap wipes them out. How many extinctions? Well, given that there were probably very few warm-adapted endemic species in Europe, I would say that even if a terrible space ship came down and vacuumed all life off of Western Europe at that time, there would still be very few extinctions.
How many extinctions on a 'massively global scale'? Huh, is that the line that has to be crossed for you to think rapid climate change is worth worrying about? [Well, among the 5 extinctions in Earth's history that satisfy your criterion, name one that wasn't associated with a dramatic climate shift.] Given the event 12679 years ago was largely limited to NW Europe (you really should read the article!) I don't know why you would expect 'massively global' extinctions.
As for polar bears ... did I say you weren't pursuing talking points? Whoops!
links please
"Richard"
"There are more polar bears today than 30 years ago."
Your saying it doesn't make it so .... And absent context, there is no reason to think that it's relevant.
extinctions?
Really people. You have to distinguish between what is known as local extinction (as can happen in such a rapid climate change) and species extinction. You also have to remember that species are becoming extinct all the time purely as a matter of course in nature. Local extinction does not mean whole species complexes become extinct, but that they are no longer extant in that area but are elsewhere. This is common with animal and plant dispersal and retreat. I reiterate that there is no evidence of widespread species extinction 12000 years ago.
Polar bear populations are difficult to census. However, it is regarded that the population today (25000 by some estimates) is about 3 to 4 times the population in the 1950s (1950s estimate by Uspensky 1961). The Canadian population alone is considered to be in excess of 12000 in the 1990s (Taylor and Lee 1995). The majority of the populations are either stable or increasing in number. Of the rest a significant proportion are of unknown status.
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/species/about_species/species_factsheets/polar_bear/pbear_population_distribution/index.cfm
http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/S7ipIHsOtha6F1EACM5JH2~
Uspensky(1961) in http://pbsg.npolar.no/docs/Proc01_1965.pdf (5000 - 8000 bears in 1950s)
Taylor and Lee(1995)
http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic48-2-147.pdf
About that famous photo
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2969/
No, you have to distinguish & remember...
I'm going to divorce myself from the polar bear part of this discussion. You can point to the effects of hunting all you like, it's irrelevant to the discussion I am trying to have with you.
I understand extirpation quite well. Do you? I wrote the part explaining how parts of Western Europe, which were fairly newly deglaciated, wouldn't have had many warm-adapted endemics, and therefore couldn't be expected to have widespread, whole-species extinctions due to local, sudden cooling. That was in response to some silly things that you wrote regarding 'massively global' extinctions (citing the big 5). You should distinguish and remember ... and read the comments of others more carefully.
Re: No, you have to distinguish & remember...
Thank you Steve for the smack on the wrist. I should have read your post more closely.
Rapid climate change is not unusual in the paleoclimatic record (just look at the ice core data). My argument is essentially that we have a very "NOW" centric view of changes in the earths dynamic and disregard the fact that the biota has had to deal with rapid climatic change in the past. I am not a believer in the fragile ecosystem dogma that so pervades the environmental movement. My philosophy is that the earths animals and plants are not fragile in nature but quite the opposite. The ability of the biota to adapt to change (rapid or otherwise) is a requirement for species to exist for any length of time. Ecosystems are not so much fragile as changeable and the successful species adapt to this. My prediction is that the foreseen extinctions that are so shrilly trumpeted by the environmental movement are nothing more than politicizing the issue with fear. Species are far more resilient than they give them credit for. Some species are destined to disappear (perhaps even us one day). In terms of species extinctions, we probably have more to fear from rapid global cooling into an ice age than from global warming.
Resilient species?
You're very philosophical about the success - and failure - of species that can't keep up. But I find that you're sounding a bit too much like the Canadian civil servants who counselled East Coast fishers to keep hitting the cod stocks, confident in the resilience of that (now vanished) species.
As for the prospect of global cooling: absolutely. Everyone with a 30,000-year planning horizon should be thinking seriously about adapting to the next ice age. Those of us who are so shortsighted that we are obsessing about a global environmental crisis that will come to a head during the lives of our children, well, we'll just go on fretting over an anticipated temperature rise of three degrees this century.