Posted on 12/07/2007 3:55:53 PM PST by blam
Ancient flood brought Gulf Stream to a halt
19:00 06 December 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Fred Pearce
It was the biggest climate event of the last 10,000 years and caused the most dramatic change in the weather since humans began farming. And it may yet hold important lessons about climate change in the 21st century.
Just over 8000 years ago, a huge glacial lake in Canada burst, and an estimated 100,000 cubic kilometres of fresh water rushed into the North Atlantic. Researchers now say they know for sure that this catastrophic event shut down the Gulf Stream and cooled parts of the northern hemisphere by several degrees for more than a hundred years.
They say the findings show modelling studies are right to suggest that something similar could happen with equal abruptness as the planet warms under human influence. The film The Day After Tomorrow, which portrays such a scenario, may have exaggerated – but not by much.
Lake Agassiz was a giant lake that formed at the end of the last ice age as the huge Laurentide ice sheet melted (see a simulation of the process). The lake occupied most of the modern-day Canadian Midwest between the Hudson Bay and the US border.
Freshwater flood
Climate historians have previously established that the lake burst suddenly, emptying down the Hudson Strait and into the Labrador Sea west of Greenland.
This is very close to a key point in the global ocean circulation system, where Atlantic water brought north on the Gulf Stream freezes, and dense, saline, leftover water plunges to the ocean floor.
Investigators have speculated that the huge slug of water from the emptying lake could have refreshed the ocean water so much that this plunging ceased,
(Excerpt) Read more at environment.newscientist.com ...
OK - fess up - who was driving the SUV.
On a serious note. I don’t think there are too many huge cold lakes like that anymore. Icepack melting is not going to happen in the blink of an eye.
There is no huge inland lake in Canada behind the ice dam. They must mean something other than what the word 'similar' means.
And latest NIE notwithstanding, Nuclear Winter will cure Global Warming long before the temp has gone up more than a degree to two.
BUSH’S FAULT...
What caused the rise in temperature 10,000 years ago that caused the alleged flood?
Especially since the total amount of fresh water ice is actually increasing, right now.
If you dig a little deeper you'll find they believe this catastrophe was George Bush's fault.
As soon as I got to this paragraph I knew the article could not have been written by a scientist. That is such an infantile leap of pure faith in "the agenda".
The creator of The Day After Tomorrow candidly confessed that he was science-ignorant, and he made up scenarios based on their dramatic visuals, rather than any grounding whatsoever in the natural sciences, climate science or physics of any kind.
It's going to take a lot more than an ignorant assertion that "man made" global warming can be compared (how exactly?) to a gigantic natural process.
Aside from that, it is a fascinating subject. Ice age dams bursts are being found and verified world wide, not the least of which is our very own Lake Missoula...
That was at least 24 years ago.
Now I will concede that there has been considerable Arctic ice melting in this time frame, yet we see no abatement of the Gulf Stream flow. Nor will we, given the current rate of melting, as it is all things considered, incremental, not catastrophic. A catastrophic event in the past, is not evidence of a catastrophic result from incremental events today.
I want a lot more documentation and back-up math for this statement before I even begin to take it seriously.
One decade represents 0.125% (0.00125) of 8000 years.
Convince me that sediment cores can be read to that kind of resolution.
That alone casts serious doubt about anything else that is claimed.
“Catastrophic” could also be an event such as a prolonged solar flare, quickly warming the Earth by seveal degrees, not, as we have today, by hundredths of a degree.
Or, there could be another volcano such as Krakatoa in the late 1800s...
Must have been GLOBAL WARMING 10,000 years ago!!!!
When I was in school, a third grader could see the flaws in this story.
But that's nothing compared to the damage that humankind can do to the earth unless we empty our pockets and give it to the cause and live as paupers for the rest of eternity. ; )
What humankind can do to change the nature of the earth is at least ten billion fold what the creator of it can do to change it via nature. /s
It's not nice to fool Mother Nature but IF the "fooler's" have enough cash flow, look out ma!
Yep, that is a CATASTROPHE!
A few degrees! For a hundred years! Run away!
Frankly, I'd have thought the impact would have been far greater...
They don't have to fess up for admittedly it was me.
I'm an ol' codger. /snicker
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