Meltdown Blamed For Big Freeze

[indigobusiness]

by Gary Wisby
Environment Reporter
Chicago Sun-Times
12-14-4

Talk about a climate change: A University of Illinois at Chicago professor says he has found new evidence that a massive meltdown of polar ice 8,200 years ago put North America into a deep freeze for a century.

The "most dramatic climate change in the last 10,000 years" followed a flood of fresh water from a glacial reservoir into the salty water of the Gulf Stream, which controls our continent's weather. That led to a 43-degree temperature drop, said UIC's Torbjorn Tornqvist.

His report on earth core samples that indicate an abrupt jump in sea levels caused by the colossal flood will appear Saturday in an online issue of Geophysical Research Letters. Scientists believe the flood's source was a glacial reservoir called Lake Agassiz, holding twice the volume of the Caspian Sea in Eurasia, the world's largest inland sea.

According to this theory, all that fresh water gushed into the North Atlantic. There it mixed with the salty waters of the Gulf Stream.

Now less salty and less buoyant, the warm surface water sank, cooling the stream that ordinarily carries tropical waters to this continent.

snip

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-flood13.html

[baby_bear]

1. Better get your vocabulary right there!!

I read over the weekend that the Bush administration will now only tolerate references to "climate variability," not "climate change."

Must be PC and all that, and bury your head in the sand while you're at it!

Thanks for the good post, by the way. Totally makes sense.

b_b

[SariesNightly]

2. PC = spin

We need some wordsmiths to seriously come up with counter buzzwords, if we keep using their euphemisms there's no way any ground could be gained ever.

[WestMichRad]

4. Climate damage

... would be an appropriate tag, wouldn't it?

[Tangledog]

5. Arctic meltdown

Because even Republicans believe that meltdowns are a bit of a fuss.

[karl meltdown]

6. they sure do...

I can tell you that from experience...

[karl meltdown]

3. and TAHOE is warmer too?

is it THOSE PESKY vintage wooden runabouts with 2 cycle outboard motors that have the run of the place?