Big freeze plunged Europe into ice age in months European Science Foundation press release, 29. November 2009 10:00
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. .... 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. .... 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.
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.
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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.
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.
As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Big freeze plunged Europe into ice months ago
