Younger Dryas

Three temperature proxies showing the Younger Dryas event at around 12 ka BP. The NGRIP sequence (red – mislabelled as GRIP) uses the water molecule isotopic composition – δ18
O. The Vostok and EPICA Dome C series show delta-deuterium. All 3 proxies use the same vertical axis.

The Younger Dryas stadial, also referred to as the Big Freeze,[1] was a 1,300 (± 70) year period of cold climatic conditions and drought which occurred between approximately 12,800 and 11,500 years BP (between 10,800 and 9500 BC).[2] The cause of the Younger Dryas stadial is an issue of ongoing debate. Possible scenarios include the collapse of the North American ice sheets, bringing a significant influx of freshwater to disrupt the thermohaline circulation. An alternative scenario is offered in Firestone's Impact Hypothesis, whereby a bolide collision could have caused widespread cooling through dust and aerosols entering the stratosphere.[3]

It followed the Bølling-Allerød interstadial (warm period) at the end of the Pleistocene and preceded the preboreal of the early Holocene. It is named after an indicator genus, the alpine-tundra wildflower Dryas octopetala. In Ireland, the period has been known as the Nahanagan Stadial, while in the United Kingdom it has been called the Loch Lomond Stadial and most recently Greenland Stadial 1 (GS1).[4][5] The Younger Dryas (GS1) is also a Blytt-Sernander climate period detected from layers in north European bog peat.

The Dryas stadials were cold periods which interrupted the warming trend since the Last Glacial Maximum 20,000 years ago. The Older Dryas occurred approximately 1,000 years before the Younger Dryas and lasted about 300 years.[6] The Oldest Dryas is dated between approximately 18,000 and 15,000 BP (16000 to 13000 BC).

Abrupt climate change

The Younger Dryas saw a rapid return to glacial conditions in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere between 12,900–11,500 years BP,[7] in sharp contrast to the warming of the preceding interstadial deglaciation. It has been believed that the transitions each occurred over a period of a decade or so,[8] but the onset may have been faster.[9] Thermally fractionated nitrogen and argon isotope data from Greenland ice core GISP2 indicate that the summit of Greenland was approximately 15 °C (27 °F) colder during the Younger Dryas[8] than today. In the UK, coleopteran (beetle) fossil evidence suggests that mean annual temperature dropped to −5 °C (23 °F),[10] and periglacial conditions prevailed in lowland areas, while icefields and glaciers formed in upland areas.[11] Nothing of the size, extent, or rapidity of this period of abrupt climate change has been experienced since.[7]

Global effects

In western Europe and Greenland, the Younger Dryas is a well-defined synchronous cool period.[12] But cooling in the tropical North Atlantic may have preceded this by a few hundred years; South America shows a less well defined initiation but a sharp termination. The Antarctic Cold Reversal appears to have started a thousand years before the Younger Dryas, and has no clearly defined start or end; Peter Huybers has argued that there is fair confidence in the absence of the Younger Dryas in Antarctica, New Zealand and parts of Oceania.[13] Timing of the tropical counterpart to the Younger Dryas – the Deglaciation Climate Reversal (DCR) – is difficult to establish as low latitude ice core records generally lack independent dating over this interval. An example of this is the Sajama ice core (Bolivia), for which the timing of the DCR has been pinned to that of the GISP2 ice core record (central Greenland). Climatic change in the central Andes during the DCR, however, was significant and characterized by a shift to much wetter, and likely colder, conditions.[14] The magnitude and abruptness of these changes would suggest that low latitude climate did not respond passively during the YD/DCR.

In western North America it is likely that the effects of the Younger Dryas were less intense than in Europe; however, evidence of glacial re-advance[15] indicates Younger Dryas cooling occurred in the Pacific Northwest.

Other features seen include:

Causes

The prevailing theory is that the Younger Dryas was caused by significant reduction or shutdown of the North Atlantic "Conveyor", which circulates warm tropical waters northward, in response to a sudden influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz and deglaciation in North America. Geological evidence for such an event is thus far lacking.[16] The global climate would then have become locked into the new state until freezing removed the fresh water "lid" from the north Atlantic Ocean. An alternative theory suggests instead that the jet stream shifted northward in response to the changing topographic forcing of the melting North American ice sheet, bringing more rain to the North Atlantic which freshened the ocean surface enough to slow the thermohaline circulation.[17] There is also some evidence that a solar flare may have been responsible for the megafaunal extinction, though it cannot explain the apparent variability in the extinction across all continents.[18]

There is evidence that some previous glacial terminations had post glacial cooling periods similar to the Younger Dryas.[19]

Impact hypothesis

A hypothesized Younger Dryas impact event, presumed to have occurred in North America around 12.9 ka BP, has been proposed as the mechanism to have initiated the Younger Dryas cooling. Amongst other things findings of melt-glass material in sediments in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Syria have been reported. These researchers argue that this material, which dates back nearly 13,000 years, was formed at temperatures of 1,700 to 2,200 °C (3,100 to 4,000 °F) as the result of a bolide impact. They argue that these findings support the controversial Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) hypothesis, that the bolide impact occurred at the onset of the Younger Dryas.[20] The hypothesis has been questioned by research that stated that most of the conclusions cannot be repeated by other scientists, misinterpretation of data, and the lack of confirmatory evidence.[21][22][23] A review of the sediments that are found at sites. New research found that sediments claimed, by the hypothesis proponents, to be deposits resulting from a bolide impact were, in fact, dated from much later or much earlier time periods than the proposed date of the cosmic impact. The researchers examined 29 sites that are commonly referenced to support the impact theory to determine if they can be geologically dated to around 13,000 years ago. Crucially, only 3 of the sites actually date from that time.[24]

In August 2014 a study in the Journal of Geology, Prof.Kennett (et al.)looked at the distribution of nanodiamonds produced during extraterrestrial collisions ;50 million square kilometers of Northern Hemisphere at YDB was found to have these nanodiamonds .Only two layers exist showing such nanodiamonds :the YDB 12,800YA and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary 65 million YA,which is also marked by the mass extinctions [25]

“The evidence we present settles the debate about the existence of abundant YDB nanodiamonds,” Kennett said. “Our hypothesis challenges some existing paradigms within several disciplines, including impact dynamics, archaeology, paleontology and paleoceanography/paleoclimatology, all affected by this relatively recent cosmic impact.”

Volcanoes

Although there may be several causes of the Younger Dryas, volcanic activity is considered one possibility.[1] The Laacher See volcano in Germany was of sufficient size, VEI 6, with over 10 km3 (2.4 cu mi) tephra ejected, to have caused significant temperature changes in the northern hemisphere. Laacher See tephra is found throughout the Younger Dryas boundary layer.[26][27][28] This possibility has been disputed by 14
C analysis. In the view of Cambridge University volcanologist, Clive Oppenheimer, the magnitude of Laacher See was similar to the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption, and the effects were a year or two of northern hemisphere summer cooling and winter warming, and up to two decades of environmental disruption in Germany.[29]

End of the climate period

Measurements of oxygen isotopes from the GISP2 ice core suggest the ending of the Younger Dryas took place over just 40–50 years in three discrete steps, each lasting five years. Other proxy data, such as dust concentration, and snow accumulation, suggest an even more rapid transition, requiring about a 7 °C (13 °F) warming in just a few years.[7][8][30][31] Total warming in Greenland was 10 ± 4 °C (18 ± 7 °F).[32]

The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to around 11.55 ka BP, occurring at 10 ka bp (uncalibrated radiocarbon year), a "radiocarbon plateau" by a variety of methods, with mostly consistent results:

11.50 ± 0.05 ka BP: GRIP ice core, Greenland[33]
11.53 + 0.04
− 0.06 		ka BP: Krakenes Lake, western Norway[34]
11.57 ka BP: Cariaco Basin core, Venezuela[35]
11.57 ka BP: German oak/pine dendrochronology[36]
11.64 ± 0.28 ka BP: GISP2 ice core, Greenland[30]

Effect on agriculture

The Younger Dryas is often linked to the adoption of agriculture in the Levant.[37][38] It is argued that the cold and dry Younger Dryas lowered the carrying capacity of the area and forced the sedentary Early Natufian population into a more mobile subsistence pattern. Further climatic deterioration is thought to have brought about cereal cultivation. While there exists relative consensus regarding the role of the Younger Dryas in the changing subsistence patterns during the Natufian, its connection to the beginning of agriculture at the end of the period is still being debated.[39][40]

Cultural references

The failure of North Atlantic thermohaline circulation is used to explain rapid climate change in some science fiction writings as early as Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1937 short story "Shifting Seas" where the author described the freezing of Europe after the Gulf Stream was disrupted, and more recently in Kim Stanley Robinson's novels, particularly Fifty Degrees Below. It also underpinned the 1999 book, The Coming Global Superstorm. Likewise, the idea of rapid climate change caused by disruption of North Atlantic ocean currents creates the setting for 2004 apocalyptic science-fiction film The Day After Tomorrow. Similar sudden cooling events have featured in other novels, such as John Christopher's The World in Winter, though not always with the same explicit links to the Younger Dryas event as is the case of Robinson's work.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Berger, W. H. (1990). "The Younger Dryas cold spell – a quest for causes". Global and Planetary Change 3 (3): 219–237. Bibcode:1990GPC.....3..219B. doi:10.1016/0921-8181(90)90018-8.
  2. ↑ Muscheler, Raimund et al. (2008). "Tree rings and ice cores reveal 14C calibration uncertainties during the Younger Dryas". Nature Geoscience 1 (4): 263–267. Bibcode:2008NatGe...1..263M. doi:10.1038/ngeo128.
  3. ↑ Parker, Andrew Goudie, David Anderson, Adrian (2013). Global environments through the Quaternary : exploring environmental change (2nd ed. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199697267.
  4. ↑ Seppä, H.; Birks, H. H.; Birks, H. J. B. (2002). "Rapid climatic changes during the Greenland stadial 1 (Younger Dryas) to early Holocene transition on the Norwegian Barents Sea coast". Boreas 31 (3): 215–225. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3885.2002.tb01068.x.
  5. ↑ Walker, M. J. C. (2004). "A Lateglacial pollen record from Hallsenna Moor, near Seascale, Cumbria, NW England, with evidence for arid conditions during the Loch Lomond (Younger Dryas) Stadial and early Holocene". Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society 55: 33–42. doi:10.1144/pygs.55.1.33.
  6. ↑ Mangerud, J.; Andersen, S. T.; Berglund, B. E.; Donner, J. J. (2008). "Quaternary stratigraphy of Norden, a proposal for terminology and classification". Boreas 3 (3): 109–126. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3885.1974.tb00669.x.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Alley, Richard B. (2000). "The Younger Dryas cold interval as viewed from central Greenland". Quaternary Science Reviews 19 (1): 213–226. Bibcode:2000QSRv...19..213A. doi:10.1016/S0277-3791(99)00062-1.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Alley, Richard B. et al. (1993). "Abrupt accumulation increase at the Younger Dryas termination in the GISP2 ice core". Nature 362 (6420): 527–529. Bibcode:1993Natur.362..527A. doi:10.1038/362527a0.
  9. ↑ Choi, Charles Q. (2 December 2009). "Big Freeze: Earth Could Plunge into Sudden Ice Age". Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  10. ↑ Severinghaus, Jeffrey P. et al. (1998). "Timing of abrupt climate change at the end of the Younger Dryas interval from thermally fractionated gases in polar ice". Nature 391 (6663): 141–146. Bibcode:1998Natur.391..141S. doi:10.1038/34346.
  11. ↑ Atkinson, T. C. et al. (1987). "Seasonal temperatures in Britain during the past 22,000 years, reconstructed using beetle remains". Nature 325 (6105): 587–592. Bibcode:1987Natur.325..587A. doi:10.1038/325587a0.
  12. ↑ How Stable was the Holocene Climate?
  13. ↑ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100908132214.htm
  14. ↑ Thompson, L. G. et al. (2000). "Ice-core palaeoclimate records in tropical South America since the Last Glacial Maximum". Journal of Quaternary Science 15 (4): 377–394. Bibcode:2000JQS....15..377T. doi:10.1002/1099-1417(200005)15:4<377::AID-JQS542>3.0.CO;2-L.
  15. ↑ Friele, P. A.; Clague, J. J. (2002). "Younger Dryas readvance in Squamish river valley, southern Coast mountains, British Columbia". Quaternary Science Reviews 21 (18–19): 1925–1933. Bibcode:2002QSRv...21.1925F. doi:10.1016/S0277-3791(02)00081-1.
  16. ↑ Broecker, Wallace S. (2006). "Was the Younger Dryas Triggered by a Flood?". Science 312 (5777): 1146–1148. doi:10.1126/science.1123253. PMID 16728622.
  17. ↑ Eisenman, I.; Bitz, C. M.; Tziperman, E. (2009). "Rain driven by receding ice sheets as a cause of past climate change". Paleoceanography 24 (4): PA4209. Bibcode:2009PalOc..24.4209E. doi:10.1029/2009PA001778.
  18. ↑ LaViolette PA (2011). "Evidence for a Solar Flare Cause of the Pleistocene Mass Extinction" (PDF). Radiocarbon 53 (2): 303–323. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  19. ↑ Carlson, A. (2008). "Why there was not a Younger Dryas-like event during the Penultimate Deglaciation". Quaternary Science Reviews 27 (9–10): 882–887. Bibcode:2008QSRv...27..882C. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2008.02.004.
  20. ↑ Bunch TE, Hermes RE, Moore AM et al. (July 2012). "Very high-temperature impact melt products as evidence for cosmic airbursts and impacts 12,900 years ago". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 109 (28): E1903–12. Bibcode:2012PNAS..109E1903B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1204453109. PMID 22711809.
  21. ↑ Kerr, R. A. (3 September 2010). "Mammoth-Killer Impact Flunks Out". Science 329 (5996): 1140–1. Bibcode:2010Sci...329.1140K. doi:10.1126/science.329.5996.1140. PMID 20813931.
  22. ↑ Pinter, Nicholas; Scott, Andrew C.; Daulton, Tyrone L.; Podoll, Andrew; Koeberl, Christian; Anderson, R. Scott; Ishman, Scott E. (2011). "The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: A requiem". Earth-Science Reviews 106 (3–4): 247. Bibcode:2011ESRv..106..247P. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2011.02.005.
  23. ↑ Boslough, M.; K. Nicoll, V. Holliday, T. L. Daulton, D. Meltzer, N. Pinter, A. C. Scott, T. Surovell, P. Claeys, J. Gill, F. Paquay, J. Marlon, P. Bartlein, C. Whitlock, D. Grayson, and A. J. T. Jull (2012). "Arguments and Evidence Against a Younger Dryas Impact Event". GEOPHYSICAL MONOGRAPH SERIES 198: 13–26. doi:10.1029/2012gm001209.
  24. ↑ Meltzer DJ, Holliday VT, Cannon MD, Miller DS (May 2014). "Chronological evidence fails to support claim of an isochronous widespread layer of cosmic impact indicators dated to 12,800 years ago". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 111 (21): E2162–71. doi:10.1073/pnas.1401150111. PMID 24821789.
  25. ↑ August,2014 Santa Barbara, CA http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2014/014368/nanodiamonds-are-forever#sthash.Jz8DHJU3.dpuf
  26. ↑ Bogaard, P. v. d.; Schmincke, Hans-Ulrich (1985). "Laacher See Tephra: A widespread isochronous late Quaternary tephra layer in central and northern Europe". Geological Society of America Bulletin 96 (12): 1554–1571. Bibcode:1985GSAB...96.1554B. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1985)96<1554:LSTAWI>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0016-7606.
  27. ↑ Bogaard, Paul van den (1995). "40Ar/39Ar ages of sanidine phenocrysts from Laacher See Tephra (12,900 yr BP): Chronostratigraphic and petrological significance". Earth and Planetary Science Letters 133 (1–2): 163–174. Bibcode:1995E&PSL.133..163V. doi:10.1016/0012-821X(95)00066-L.
  28. ↑ Neugebauera i, Brauera A, Drägera N, Dulskia P, Wulfa S, Plessena B, Mingrama J, Herzschuhb U, Branded A (12 March 2012). "A YoungerDryas varve chronology from the Rehwiese palaeolake record in NE-Germany". Quaternary Science Reviews 36: 91–102. Bibcode:2012QSRv...36...91N. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2011.12.010.
  29. ↑ Oppenheimer, Clive (2011). Eruptions that Shook the World. Cambridge University Press. pp. 217–220. ISBN 978-0-521-64112-8.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Sissons, J. B. (1979). "The Loch Lomond stadial in the British Isles". Nature 280 (5719): 199–203. Bibcode:1979Natur.280..199S. doi:10.1038/280199a0.
  31. ↑ Dansgaard, W. et al. (1989). "The abrupt termination of the Younger Dryas climate event". Nature 339 (6225): 532–534. Bibcode:1989Natur.339..532D. doi:10.1038/339532a0.
  32. ↑ Kobashia, Takuro et al. (2008). "4 ± 1.5 °C abrupt warming 11,270 years ago identified from trapped air in Greenland ice". Earth and Planetary Science Letters 268 (3–4): 397–407. Bibcode:2008E&PSL.268..397K. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2008.01.032.
  33. ↑ Taylor, K. C. (1997). "The Holocene-Younger Dryas transition recorded at Summit, Greenland". Science 278 (5339): 825–827. Bibcode:1997Sci...278..825T. doi:10.1126/science.278.5339.825.
  34. ↑ Spurk, M. (1998). "Revisions and extension of the Hohenheim oak and pine chronologies: New evidence about the timing of the Younger Dryas/Preboreal transition". Radiocarbon 40 (3): 1107–1116.
  35. ↑ Gulliksen, Steinar et al. (1998). "A calendar age estimate of the Younger Dryas-Holocene boundary at Krakenes, western Norway". Holocene 8 (3): 249–259. doi:10.1191/095968398672301347.
  36. ↑ Hughen, Konrad A. et al. (2000). "Synchronous Radiocarbon and Climate Shifts During the Last Deglaciation". Science 290 (5498): 1951–1954. Bibcode:2000Sci...290.1951H. doi:10.1126/science.290.5498.1951. PMID 11110659.
  37. ↑ Bar-Yosef, O. and A. Belfer-Cohen: "Facing environmental crisis. Societal and cultural changes at the transition from the Younger Dryas to the Holocene in the Levant." In: The Dawn of Farming in the Near East. Edited by R.T.J. Cappers and S. Bottema, pp. 55–66. Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence and Environment 6. Berlin: Ex oriente.
  38. ↑ Mithen, Steven J.: After The Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000–5000 BC, pages 46–55. Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2003.
  39. ↑ Munro, N. D. (2003). "Small game, the younger dryas, and the transition to agriculture in the southern levant" (PDF). Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte 12: 47–64.
  40. ↑ Balter, Michael (2010). "Archaeology: The Tangled Roots of Agriculture". Science 327 (5964): 404–406. doi:10.1126/science.327.5964.404. PMID 20093449. Retrieved 4 February 2010.

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