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Grazing Grass in the Ice Age

6 July 2021
Catastrophism

This story is at https://notrickszone.com/2021/07/01/large-herbivores-grazed-on-grass-yea… … large herbivores grazed on grass year round in the Arctic zone during the last Ice Age. The blog author picked up the story as it refuted global warming. If grass was growing in the Arctic and big animals were able to graze even though co2 levels were reputedly much lower does this not contradict the co2 is evil and we'll all die of heat exposure story. After all, the alarm over too much co2 is all about the permafrost melting.

However, that was not why I posted this story – and the link. The more important aspect is that during the Late Glacial Maximum Arctic Siberia had much more fertile soil and productive vegetation. More so that exists in the modern world. Why is that? Extensive grassland ecosystems in the summer months are one thing but 'year round' grazing is suggesting a quite warm environment, quite unlike the picture presented by the northern hemisphere being locked up in a massive ice sheet. It has been known for a  few years now that most of Siberia and Alaska did not have an ice sheet, but this new research not only emphasizes that fact but also how warm it might have been in NE Siberia. Of course, Peter Warlow told us a similar story at the last SIS Cambridge Conference. He said the Late Glacial Maximum represented a shift in the polar ice cap, suggesting the north pole was situated somewhere in NW Greenland, or in the nearby sea. This would involve a different polar zone, one in which most of Siberia and Alaska, and some parts of the Yukon, were outside the polar circle. In that situation, a grassland environment would not be out of place – reminiscent of the steppes or the praire in the modern world.

We also learn that in Alaska wild horses grazed on grass on a year round basis. Not only that but fossil remains of insects in Alaska during the LGM have similaries to insects found further south in the modern world. Same goes for fossil trees – now also found further south. See Scientific Reportshttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92079-1 … apparently, the researchers found little or no evidence of over grazing – which suggests the vegetation quickly regenerated after being chomped.

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