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Hydrogen Economy, Geothermal and Ocean Power, and Climate Change
Published in Roy L. Nersesian, Energy Economics, 2016
With the exception of the past 10,000 years, variations in temperature were much more severe, transitions between cooling and warming trends were swift (about 1,000 years), and the Earth a decidedly much colder place to live for the last four hundred thousand years. The warmest part of the temperature cycle during this period would be similar to today’s weather, but it did not last long before the world plunged into another frigid ice age. About 14,700 years ago, the Earth warmed and climate stabilized for about 2,000 years before there was a sudden reversion to a 1,000-year ice age, named the Younger Dryas (there are also the Older and Oldest Dryas periods). Perhaps the onslaught of this sudden cooling freeze-dried the woolly mammoths (the science fiction movie The Day After Tomorrow imagines a sudden freezing event).40 Then, for inexplicable reasons, climate suddenly reversed direction and an era of unusual warmth with relatively stable temperatures began that has lasted about 12,000 years (the Holocene Epoch)—a phenomenon not experienced during the previous 400,000 years. During this 12,000-year period, there were 46 warming events where the mean rate of warming was about 1.2°C per century versus the 0.7°C per century warming experienced since 1900.41
Summary and discussion
Published in Jill L. Baker, Technology of the Ancient Near East, 2018
Equally rapid change from a dry, arid, cold climate to a wet and warm climate happened at the end of the Younger Dryas, which led to a rise in water levels and a restoration of flora and fauna. This was followed by a second Mini Ice Age, ca. 6200–5800 bce, which has been confirmed by glaciologists measuring methane levels and oxygen isotopes in tiny bubbles of fossil air from the ice. This event caused the drying up of water resources (the Black Sea was some 400 feet below its “normal” level), an average temperature drop of ca. 8º, the disappearance of food resources, and massive migrations as evidenced by the abandonment of settlements. Neolithic people moved closer to water resources, such as the Black Sea, and began farming and animal husbandry to compensate for lack of wild resources. At around 5800 bce there was a warming trend; snow and ice melted, rains returned, and water levels rose. Some waterside settlements were abandoned because of rising water levels. At approximately 5600 bce, water levels rose substantially and rapidly, coming right up to the upper levels of the Bosporus. The sea level of the Mediterranean (Aegean) may have reached some 500 feet above the level of the Black Sea. The raging waters and pressure from the rapidly rising Mediterranean Sea caused the Bosporus to collapse, allowing very rapidly moving water to rush into the Black Sea, causing it to rise some 6 inches per day and creating a Niagara Falls-like effect over the Bosporus. Data from the core samplings provide the evidence for this scenario. Based on their research, Ryan and Pitman suggest this may provide the kernel of truth which inspired the ancient Near Eastern flood stories. Peoples living on or near the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea would have had to abruptly flee their homes and relocate, and they carried with them their experience, which may have become the subject of family legends (Ryan and Pitman 2000).
Climate Change: Polar Regions
Published in Yeqiao Wang, Atmosphere and Climate, 2020
The ice began to retreat approximately 16 ka, but then between 12,800 and 11,500 years Before Present (BP) there was a pronounced cool event known as the Younger Dryas when postglacial warming was replaced by a return to glacial conditions in high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Temperatures in Greenland and Europe dropped by 15°C. Accumulation on the Greenland ice sheet was halved and there were high dust loadings in the atmosphere.
Dynamics of a retreating ice sheet: a LiDAR study in Värmland, SW Sweden
Published in GFF, 2020
Alastair Goodship, Helena Alexanderson
The areas that once lay beneath the SIS have been subject to particularly detailed study for the past century and have yielded much of the knowledge that comprises current understanding of ice sheet dynamics and Quaternary glaciations history (Rinterknecht et al. 2006; Francus et al. 2013). The SIS at its greatest extent was multi-domed and with multiple major ice-streams (Boulton et al. 2001). At the last glacial maximum (LGM) the ice sheet covered all of Scandinavia reaching into northern Germany in the south, the North Sea in the west and western Russia in the east (Stroeven et al. 2016). Not all areas of the ice-sheet reached their maximum extent at the same time and retreat was diachronous (Böse et al. 2012; Larsen et al. 2016). The Younger Dryas interval lasted from 12.7-11.6 calculated thousand years before present (cal ka BP) and saw a re-advance of the ice margin to the southern part of Lake Vänern (Fig. 1; Lundqvist 1995). This advance is also marked by the Salpausselkä moraines in Finland (Saarnisto & Saarinen 2001) and the Ra moraines in Norway (Andersen et al. 1995; Johansson et al. 2011). This Younger Dryas lasted until ~11.6 cal ka BP after which the margin began to rapidly retreat due to warming climate conditions (Baker et al. 2017).
The Basilicata region (Southern Italy): a natural and ‘human-built’ open-air laboratory for manifold studies. Research trends over the last 24 years (1994–2017)
Published in Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk, 2019
Fabrizio Terenzio Gizzi, Monica Proto, Maria Rosaria Potenza
Towards the left side of the cluster, we find the join of terms that ‘simulate’ the climate studies (CLT). The green group, that counts 40 terms (4th), shows some new terms such as Younger Dryas [8]. The term indicates one of the most well known examples of abrupt climate change during the shift from the last cold glacial stage to a warmer interglacial state. During this transition, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere suddenly returned to the near-glacial conditions. This near-glacial period is called Younger Dryas from the flower Dryas octopetala that was common in Europe during this phase. Studies about the Younger Dryas in the sediments of Lago Grande di Monticchio were performed by pollen [12] investigations so showing that there was no evidences at Monticchio of a Younger Dryas-like oscillation during the penultimate deglaciation (e.g. Brauer et al. 2007; Allen and Huntley 2009). The cluster also refers to articles having the changes in temperature(s) [39] and precipitation(s) [12] during historical times as a focus, also analyzing their consequences (e.g. Lucarini et al. 2004; Piccarreta et al. 2004; Piccarreta et al. 2006; Toreti and Desiato 2008).