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Geology, glaciology, and climate change

8 June 2014
Catastrophism

At http://notrickszone.com/2014/06/09/giant-of-geologyglaciology-christian-… … and sidestepping the blowback and snake oil of climate science, Christian Schluechter has some interesting things to say about glaciers in the Alps over the last 10,000 years. For example, the Swiss geologist found chunks of wood at the edge of a glacier in the 1990s. Laboratory analysis revealed it was 4000 years old. He went on to find multiple wood fragments of the same, or nearly the same, age. His conclusion – today where one finds the Lower Aare glacier in the Bernese Alps it used to be a 'wide landscape with a wildly flowing Alpine river'. In other words – it was warmer in the past than it is today. Likewise, during the Roman era the forest line was much higher in the Alps than in the modern world. Hence, it was also warmer in the Roman era – 2000 years ago. The Romans do not actually refer to glaciers hindering the main routes across the Alps so to what degree they might have existed is a matter of opinion. Obviously, there was ice on the mountains – but through the main passes and valley routes this might not have been so. Schluechter goes on to say that an oxygen isotope analysis of rocks at the Rhone glacier revealed it had been ice free for 5800 of the last 10,000 years. Even more intriguing from a catastrophist point of view, cold periods appear to have set in very rapidly. There was sudden cold and a quick formation of ice. On the edge of the Mont Mine glacier his team found huge tree trunks and discovered they had all died in a single year. Trees killed by cold in a single year – think about that. What might cause that to happen – something remarkable. The year of death was dated to 8195 years Before Present (roughly 6200BC). This corresponds nicely with oxygen isotopes in Greenland ice cores that also show a marked cooling around 6200BC. Schluechter then added – that proves the Sun is the main driver in climate change. But, does it?

The Sun is of course involved. How else could temperatures have plunged dramatically in a single year. What was in the atmosphere blocking sunlight – lots of dust and debris perhaps. Could massive volcanic activity be involved? Could a cosmic body or a meteor storm be at the root of such an event?Why would the Sun suddenly switch off?

The date of 6200BC is interesting in that a lot of strange things happened at that time. Sea levels suddenly increased – and one theory is that a huge glacial lake somewhere in NE N America popped and catastrophically entered the Atlantic and upset the ocean circulation system. The extent of the sea level changes at this time is obscured by the modelled sea level curve – which has an exponential gradualist rise in sea levels from the early Holocene to 6200BC – when it more or less settled down to what it is now. There were some ripples in the curve at later dates – as revealed by the dates of estuarine floodings in various parts of the world including Britain and Ireland. The main sea level changes came to a stop at 6200BC. This was the date at which  the world's sea levels ceased to fluctuate, to a significant degree. Hence, some kind of event involving sea levels can safely be dated at that point in time. Global sea levels realigned themselves with the geoid of the Earth, it could be argued. At this time the North Sea basin was flooded, and Britain became more or less an island (it is calculated). This might not strictly be true as the sea level curve is an average – but most of the North Sea ceased to be dry land. The same is true of the English channel. We have evidence that a Mesolithic boatyard, now on the seabed of the Solent, was on dry land (beside a river) when it was swamped by a dramatic rise in sea levels. On  the other side of the world, the islands of the Philippines and Indonesia were part of Sunda Land prior to 6200BC. The sea level rose dramatically, as described by Stephen Oppenheimer in 'Eden in the East' – and swamped what was an extension of the SE Asian mainland.

 

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