Although the last
glacial period ended more than 8,000 years ago, its effects can still be felt today.
Someone up above asked why ice age /
glacial periods end so abruptly.
Not exact matches
These may be submerged ancient shorelines cut during times of lower sea level, «the most recent of which occurred during the last
glacial period, which
ended about 19,000 years ago,» Chaytor said.
A prehistoric human skeleton found on the Yucatán Peninsula is at least 13,000 years old and most likely dates from a
glacial period at the
end of the most recent ice age, the late Pleistocene.
Understanding the complex interplay between climate and biotic interactions is thus essential for fully anticipating how ecosystems will respond to the fast rates of current warming, which are unprecedented since the
end of the last
glacial period.
The beginning and
end of a
glacial period are clearly times of global climate change, but there are also
periods of abrupt change in climate patterns within those
periods.
However, some species of animals survived the
end of the last
glacial period somewhat longer than others.
They compared the carbon - 13 and nitrogen - 15 values in the giant deer bones from the Swabian Alb caves with those of red deer, other giant deer and reindeer, which were living at the beginning and the
end of the last
glacial period.
Woolly mammoths disappeared from Siberia and North America about 10,000 years ago, along with other giant mammals that went extinct at the
end of the last
glacial period.
«Conversely, there is more and better evidence across Iceland that when the ice sheet underwent major reduction at the
end of the last
glacial period, there was a large increase in both the frequency and volume of basalt erupted — with some estimates being 30 times higher than the present day.
However, it's quite a different matter melting a long - lived massive ice sheet up to 1.5 km thick that covers over 70 % of the land surface (as happened at the
end of the last
glacial period), from melting isolated and much thinner ice caps / sheets that only cover about 11 % of the land surface (i.e. present - day).»
Just 200 years before the young girls» short lifetimes, the last
glacial period of the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million — 11,700 years ago)
ended.
It is very unlikely that the Milankovitch cycles can start or
end an ice age (series of
glacial periods):
The history of Scotland is known to have begun by the
end of the last
glacial period (in the paleolithic), roughly 10,000 years ago.
Last
glacial period began about 120,000 years ago and
end about 15,000 years ago.
At the
end of the
glacial periods, CO2 increases about 80 ppm over ~ 10,000 years.
Interesting study out on the outgassing of CO2 from the northern Pacific to
end the last
glacial period:
It is therefore estimated that about 500 billion tons of carbon were emitted into the atmosphere at the
end of the last
glacial period.
In the mid-latitudes and the tropics, the
end of the last
glacial period was marked by a tremendous increase in rainfall.
[1] It began with the
end of the cold
period known as the Oldest Dryas, and
ended abruptly with the onset of the Younger Dryas, a cold
period that reduced temperatures back to near -
glacial levels within a decade.
During the Earth's ice ages the Pacific Ocean stored large amounts of carbon, which for some reason it released again close to the last
glacial period's
end, warming the world and melting most of the icecaps.
Few people have read paleo - climatology text books, are aware of the
glacial / interglacial cycle, are aware that the paleoclimatic record has unequivocal evidence of cyclic gradual changes and cyclic abrupt climate events, are aware that the abrupt climate change events such as the abrupt termination of the last 22 interglacial
periods lacks an explanation, are aware that all of the past interglacial
periods are short (roughly 12,000 years) and that they have
ended abruptly, and so on.
The «stuff on the bottom» of a coal seam is the tail
end of a
glacial period, she said.
Kent points out that according to the Milankovitch theory, we should be at the peak of a 20,000 - some year warming trend that
ended the last
glacial period; the Earth may eventually start cooling again over thousands of years, and possibly head for another glaciation.
Suess reported that the last
glacial period had
ended with a «relatively rapid» rise of temperature — about 1C (roughly 2F) per thousand years.
A new study documents evidence of a massive release of carbon from permafrost as temperatures rose at the
end of the last
glacial period.
CO2 clearly lags the warming that took place 135,000 years ago and even more importantly, it also lagged the cooling that
ended the Eemian interglacial (warm
period between
glacial periods) 117,000 years ago.
In addition, the rate of warming over the 21st century is projected to be far faster than has occurred over such
periods since the
end of the last
glacial period, again long before societal development.
I've understood that he also predicted the ~ 1000 year time lag between temperature rise and CO2 at the
end of a
glacial period, before it was observed in the ice cores thanks to better dating techniques.
A new study is shedding light on what that could mean for the future by providing the first direct physical evidence of a massive release of carbon from permafrost during a warming spike at the
end of the last
glacial period.
It seems that insolation above 510 watts / sq metre will
end a
glacial period.
Rhetorically speaking, was
glacial melt and SLR from warming «equally measured» in 150 year increments from 20k years ago at the
end of the LIA to 10k years ago when the last glacier receded from New York; or did the velocity of SLR increase over this
period as factors, like the before mentioned, accelerated the velocity of melt through the
period?
For an interglacial
period to
end, the oceans have to lose heat content so that snows will linger through the summer and increase the Earth's albedo» http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/16/onset-of-the-next-glaciation/#more-71121 It seems the control variable for an abrupt
glacial transition is in place.
For the last three thousand years, Since 1000 BC, the
end of the Minoan Warm
Period, the global temperature trend has been -0.5 to -0.7 dgC per 1000 yrs, projecting full
glacial of 8 dgC in another 7,000 yrs.
1998 was near the tail
end of a decade that jumped well above the mean average longer term rate of increase (there is a thing called climate variability, it didn't disappear with climate change, and if anything probably only intensified;, and ocean warming and
glacial melt both accelerated during this
period, taking more energy out of the air — see below).
------- * Not to mention that there is an event similar to the Younger Dryas at the
end of at least one other
glacial period, «termination III» (see e.g. Carlson et al., 2008).
The problem was the Pleistocene extinction, the disappearance of most species of large mammals across most of the world at the
end of the last
glacial period some 12,000 years ago.