“The earliest archaeological evidence for cultivating plants and herding animals dates back 10,000 to 12,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent." (There's a reason for that!)
I hope that our history books in 20,000 years don't have something like “Rapid and extensive glaciation beginning in the year 2020 lead to scarce resources, huge migrations of humans to warmer regions, and ultimately led to World War III. The remaining humans were scattered in small pockets along the equator with all but a handful killed by disease and famine.”
Thank you.
There are some who assert the Sun goes micro nova every 12000 years or so.
We’re overdue...
Interesting graph, but, the data at the far right seems a bit questionable. The Little Ice Age is variously described as occurring in various periods all dating after 1300 or so and ending for good around 1850. The Medieval Warm Period peaked around 1100 (depending a bit on source cited). The graph appears to place the LIA before the year 1000, and the MWP earlier than that. Possibly the time scale changes without being duly noted, but that complicates the question further.
Granted that regional data and the global average* do not agree, but what does this chart purport to illustrate? Either way, by any data I know of that shows the LIA as a significant dip, it has NOT been as cold as the LIA recently (last 100 years or so) in a apples to apples comparison.
*Most sources showing the global average show it as greatly minimizing the overall effect of the LIA...
One thing is for sure: If the magnitude of variability over the last 20k years or so is anything like that shown in this graph, and, noting the adverse effects of some of the LIA, a drop like the Younger Dryas period would be truly catastrophic for most humans.
Younger Dryas Period caused by multiple comet fragments strikes from the Taurid cloud over a 100 year period, mostly on the North American Continent.