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 ...
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“as the planet warms under human influence”, iow, never.
And so goes the story of global warming.
Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did A Comet Blow Up Over Eastern Canada?
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Thanks Blam.The Day After Tomorrow, which portrays such a scenario, may have exaggerated but not by much...although that sentence can safely be said to have exaggerated something or other. ;') T |
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Pfft!
This is no big deal. If the current stops, we just get all the kids into the ocean and have them swim round and round the edges of the sea until it starts back up.
Didn’t you ever try to make a whirlpool in a swim pool before?
I swear, sometimes sciencers act like they sprang from an egg fully grown and with zero clue.
LOL
I am posting from a place in Canada that was under one mile of ice at the Last Glacial Maximum.
It is possible that 13,000 years ago, a great lake had formed behind the edges of the massive ice sheets, which would have caused massive floods when the natural (SUV-Free) dams gave way.
That situation 13,000 years ago, has no bearing on the situation today.
Are there any intelligent reporters left?
That’s the point. It wasn’t mankind.
No argument from me.
I’m afraid you’re going to be waiting a long time.
Blame Canada!!!
So essentially, global warming (ice melting) caused (near) global cooling?
The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes:
Flood, Fire, and Famine in
the History of Civilization
by Richard Firestone,
Allen West,
Simon Warwick-Smith
.
See, right there, we need you in charge of planetary defense.
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