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Additional background on the thermohaline cycle and the Younger Dryas period, which saw a change of 10 degrees Celsius in a decade: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ab
by brownbat 9y ago
Additional background on the thermohaline cycle and the Younger Dryas period, which saw a change of 10 degrees Celsius in a decade:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/The%20Younger%20Dryas https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/The%20Younge...
Some more information on the period here:
http://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/arch/examples.shtml http://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/arch/examples.shtml
- akvadrako 9y agoThat's quite interesting. What I can't tell by quickly reading those sources: is this mostly based on the data from a single location? It seems possible that that local climate can change a lot more wildly then the global averages.
- brownbat 9y agoI should have included above, but the wikipedia section on global effects shows how it varied by continent. Massive effects in Europe and South America, but with some evidence the Pacific wasn't as affected. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas The earlier intro section there lays out the discovery and some types of evidence that led to the conclusion, and a theory based on geology from China that these rapid changes tend to accompany deglaciation. 20 degrees Fahrenheit shift within a decade, even if just for one continent... It's hard to fathom.