In the film, "The Day After Tomorrow," the world gets gripped in ice within the span of just a few weeks. Now research now suggests an eerily similar event might indeed have occurred in the past.
Looking ahead to the future, there is no reason why such a freeze shouldn't happen again — and in ironic fashion it could be precipitated if ongoing changes in climate force the Greenland ice sheet to suddenly melt, scientists say. Starting roughly 12,800 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere was gripped by a chill that lasted some 1,300 years. Known by scientists as the Younger Dryas and nicknamed the"Big Freeze," geological evidence suggests it was brought on when a vast pulse of fresh water — a greater volume than all of North America's Great Lakes combined — poured into the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.
This abrupt influx, caused when the glacial Lake Agassiz in North America burst its banks, diluted the circulation of warmer water in the North Atlantic, bringing this "conveyer belt" to a halt. Without this warming influence, evidence shows that temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere plummeted.
...This kind of scenario would not discount evidence pointing toward global warming — after all, it leans on the Greenland ice sheet melting.
"We could say that global warming could lead to a dramatic cooling," Patterson told LiveScience. "This should serve as a further warning rather than a pass."
A pass on what? Kyoto, "Cap and Trade", Copenhagen?. If only cavemen had climate scientists they could have been warned about the dangers of cooking meat.
What a racket. Our modern soothsayers have now predicted our SUV's will lead to Global Cooling or Global Warming - whichever comes first. Send more money and remember, when the future happens - they predicted it.
Addendum: If you are worried about the ice sheets of Greenland melting, read this to see what passes for science among the Anthropormorphic Global Warming crowd.
Cross-posted at Anatreptic
