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Human Extinction Just Around The Corner? Research Suggests New Ice Age Begins Within Months
Big freeze plunged Europe into ice age in months
In the film, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ the world enters the icy grip of a new glacial period within the space of just a few weeks. Now new research shows that this scenario may not be so far from the truth after all.
William Patterson, from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, and his colleagues have shown that switching off the North Atlantic circulation can force the Northern hemisphere into a mini ‘ice age’ in a matter of months. Previous work has indicated that this process would take tens of years.
Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by a mini ice-age, known by scientists as the Younger Dryas, and nicknamed the ‘Big Freeze’, which lasted around 1300 years. Geological evidence shows that the Big Freeze was brought about by a sudden influx of freshwater, when the glacial Lake Agassiz in North America burst its banks and poured into the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. This vast pulse, a greater volume than all of North America’s Great Lakes combined, diluted the North Atlantic conveyor belt and brought it to a halt.
Without the warming influence of this ocean circulation temperatures across the Northern hemisphere plummeted, ice sheets grew and human civilisation fell apart.
Previous evidence from Greenland ice cores has indicated that this sudden change in climate occurred over the space of a decade or so. Now new data shows that the change was amazingly abrupt, taking place over the course of a few months, or a year or two at most.
Patterson and his colleagues have created the highest resolution record of the ‘Big Freeze’ event to date, from a mud core taken from an ancient lake, Lough Monreach, in Ireland. Using a scalpel layers were sliced from the core, just 0.5mm thick, representing a time period of one to three months.
Carbon isotopes in each slice reveal how productive the lake was, while oxygen isotopes give a picture of temperature and rainfall. At the start of the ‘Big Freeze’ their new record shows that temperatures plummeted and lake productivity stopped over the course of just a few years. “It would be like taking Ireland today and moving it up to Svalbard, creating icy conditions in a very short period of time,” says Patterson, who presented the findings at the European Science Foundation BOREAS conference on humans in the Arctic, in Rovaniemi, Finland.
Meanwhile, their isotope record from the end of the Big Freeze shows that it took around two centuries for the lake and climate to recover, rather than the abrupt decade or so that ice cores indicate. “This makes sense because it would take time for the ocean and atmospheric circulation to turn on again,” says Patterson.
Looking ahead to the future Patterson says there is no reason why a ‘Big Freeze’ shouldn’t happen again. “If the Greenland ice sheet melted suddenly it would be catastrophic,” he says.
This study was part of a broad network of 38 individual research teams from Europe, Russia, Canada and the USA forming the European Science Foundation EUROCORES programme ‘Histories from the North – environments, movements, narratives’ (BOREAS). This highly interdisciplinary initiative brought together scientists from a wide range of disciplines including humanities, social, medical, environmental and climate sciences.
For more information, images or to arrange interviews please contact
Chloe Kembery, ESF press office
ckembery[at]esf.org Tel +33 (0) 388-762-158 Cell +33 (0) 643-172-382
William Patterson, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
geochemistry.usask.ca/bill.html
The European Science Foundation (ESF) is an independent, non-governmental organisation that promotes collaboration in scientific research, funding of research and science policy across Europe. Established in 1974, its members are 80 national funding bodies, research-performing agencies, academies and learned societies from 30 countries. Through its activities and influential membership the foundation has enabled cross-border cooperation in Europe and made major contributions to science globally. The ESF covers humanities, social sciences, life, earth and environmental sciences, medical sciences, physical and engineering sciences. www.esf.org
EUROCORES (European Collaborative Research scheme) aims to enable researchers in different European countries to develop collaboration and scientific synergy in areas where European scale and scope are required to reach the critical mass necessary for top class science in a global context. The scheme provides a flexible framework which allows national basic research funding and performing organisations to join forces to support excellent European research in and across all scientific areas.
Covered in the media
New Scientist
The Sunday Times, UK
The Observer, UK
http://www.esf.org/media-centre/press-releases/ext-single-news/arti...
In the film, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ the world enters the icy grip of a new glacial period within the space of just a few weeks. Now new research shows that this scenario may not be so far from the truth after all.
William Patterson, from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, and his colleagues have shown that switching off the North Atlantic circulation can force the Northern hemisphere into a mini ‘ice age’ in a matter of months. Previous work has indicated that this process would take tens of years.
Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by a mini ice-age, known by scientists as the Younger Dryas, and nicknamed the ‘Big Freeze’, which lasted around 1300 years. Geological evidence shows that the Big Freeze was brought about by a sudden influx of freshwater, when the glacial Lake Agassiz in North America burst its banks and poured into the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. This vast pulse, a greater volume than all of North America’s Great Lakes combined, diluted the North Atlantic conveyor belt and brought it to a halt.
Without the warming influence of this ocean circulation temperatures across the Northern hemisphere plummeted, ice sheets grew and human civilisation fell apart.
Previous evidence from Greenland ice cores has indicated that this sudden change in climate occurred over the space of a decade or so. Now new data shows that the change was amazingly abrupt, taking place over the course of a few months, or a year or two at most.
Patterson and his colleagues have created the highest resolution record of the ‘Big Freeze’ event to date, from a mud core taken from an ancient lake, Lough Monreach, in Ireland. Using a scalpel layers were sliced from the core, just 0.5mm thick, representing a time period of one to three months.
Carbon isotopes in each slice reveal how productive the lake was, while oxygen isotopes give a picture of temperature and rainfall. At the start of the ‘Big Freeze’ their new record shows that temperatures plummeted and lake productivity stopped over the course of just a few years. “It would be like taking Ireland today and moving it up to Svalbard, creating icy conditions in a very short period of time,” says Patterson, who presented the findings at the European Science Foundation BOREAS conference on humans in the Arctic, in Rovaniemi, Finland.
Meanwhile, their isotope record from the end of the Big Freeze shows that it took around two centuries for the lake and climate to recover, rather than the abrupt decade or so that ice cores indicate. “This makes sense because it would take time for the ocean and atmospheric circulation to turn on again,” says Patterson.
Looking ahead to the future Patterson says there is no reason why a ‘Big Freeze’ shouldn’t happen again. “If the Greenland ice sheet melted suddenly it would be catastrophic,” he says.
This study was part of a broad network of 38 individual research teams from Europe, Russia, Canada and the USA forming the European Science Foundation EUROCORES programme ‘Histories from the North – environments, movements, narratives’ (BOREAS). This highly interdisciplinary initiative brought together scientists from a wide range of disciplines including humanities, social, medical, environmental and climate sciences.
For more information, images or to arrange interviews please contact
Chloe Kembery, ESF press office
ckembery[at]esf.org Tel +33 (0) 388-762-158 Cell +33 (0) 643-172-382
William Patterson, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
geochemistry.usask.ca/bill.html
The European Science Foundation (ESF) is an independent, non-governmental organisation that promotes collaboration in scientific research, funding of research and science policy across Europe. Established in 1974, its members are 80 national funding bodies, research-performing agencies, academies and learned societies from 30 countries. Through its activities and influential membership the foundation has enabled cross-border cooperation in Europe and made major contributions to science globally. The ESF covers humanities, social sciences, life, earth and environmental sciences, medical sciences, physical and engineering sciences. www.esf.org
EUROCORES (European Collaborative Research scheme) aims to enable researchers in different European countries to develop collaboration and scientific synergy in areas where European scale and scope are required to reach the critical mass necessary for top class science in a global context. The scheme provides a flexible framework which allows national basic research funding and performing organisations to join forces to support excellent European research in and across all scientific areas.
Covered in the media
New Scientist
The Sunday Times, UK
The Observer, UK
http://www.esf.org/media-centre/press-releases/ext-single-news/arti...
Tags: age, extinction, human, ice
Replies are closed for this discussion.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Tallon on -
Maybe I should plan to go to south America, instead of Colorado? I know several people there!
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Permalink Reply by Lugh on -
I wouldn't worry to much, as soon as we have a hot week in the summer it'll be back to global warming again. Its just an excuse to tax the weather ;)
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Permalink Reply by phoenician on -
Spot on lugh, youve got it sussed LOL phoenician
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Permalink Reply by E.L.E. on -
I wish they would make up they mind. Is it global warming or ice age? Or are they planting fear into the masses? Or is it as lugh put it ... tax the weather. I don't believe in global warming or ice age.
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Permalink Reply by mad cowboy on -
I guess you dont believe in the ice caps melting , glaciers dissapearing acidification of the oceans? do you believe in the Atlantic currents? I guess you dont believe Australia is frying? good luck with that future. http://www.desdemonadespair.net/ this is my latest gloom and doom site. and for the record carbon tax is stupid but carbon elimination is going to have to happen I like how your willing to doom the future of the planet because its going to cost, and just who is it going to cost ? Were set for at least 70 percent species extinction. thats if we do something which we should debate for about ten more years. At least I'll be dead before most of the worst happpens. global climate change is not only happening it cant be stopped. B.
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Permalink Reply by mad cowboy on
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but then again maybe the ice age will put out the global warming.
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Permalink Reply by Garfield on -
Hey Cowboy, don't be so quick to push carbon elimination. Have you heard of Global Dimming??
The BBC just put out a documentary on it. Seems all the carbon we've been pumping has increased global cloud cover, thus protecting us from solar radiation. Without all the extra carbon,the world would be brighter and hotter, we would already have runaway global warming. I know, go figure, but Global Dimming is no longer a theory, recent stats show it to be a fact.The world is less bright than it used to be.For the record, the BBC does not advise us to increase carbon emissions, lol, but it does show the issue is incredibly complex, the choices are not black and white
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Permalink Reply by phoenician on
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Cowboy, correct me if Im wrong here but isnt the USA one of if not the last Country to practice recycling? and isnt that allegedly behind the global warming, which theyre now claiming is global cooling, weve been recycling in UK for some 5-10yrs in many places. phoenician
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Permalink Reply by mad cowboy on
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recyciling is good , reusing is better not using is best. global dimming was my first guess as to what the chemtrail planes were doing.making the problem worse to make it better. that must be one of the big brains that figured that out. and your right Garfield the choices arent black and white. they are not worry about the future , or do something. as for as human extinction it would probably be the best thing for the planet, and Phoenecian living in England your worst case would be an ice age. if the atlantic current stops turning because of the change in its salination do to the addition of the melted Ice caps it is theiorized that you'll go into a winter and never come out for a few thousand years. well I got to go burn some more fossil fuel help dim the planet for you. Peace B.
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Permalink Reply by mac_healer on
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Permalink Reply by phoenician on
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I think the video here explains why global warming came into being, and will also be behind any ice age that comes about. phoenician
Thanks to j for upload it.
HAARP
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Permalink Reply by John Smith on -
Good to know - Seems like it'll be best to congregate as near to the equator as possible in any event, global warming or cooling or whatever.
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