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Revealed: The cave paintings which could show how humans survived dramatic climate change during the Ice Age


Mail Online
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:33 UTC
prehistoric art

Prehistoric find: The caves in northern Spain contain more than 300 images of animals - the largest ever found on the Iberian peninsula
British scientists are set to unlock the secrets of hidden cave paintings which could reveal how humans survived during the changing climate of the Ice Age more than 15,000 years ago.

The paintings, concealed in the caves of northern Spain, will be dated accurately for the first time by experts from the University of Bristol using a new technique based on the radioactive decay of uranium.

A team from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology has just returned from an expedition to the Cantabria and Asturias regions of Spain, where they removed samples from more than 20 prehistoric painted caves.
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Snowman

Ice Age Ivory Carving Discovered in Germany

Silke Jeklic
The Epoch Times
Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:02 UTC


Ivory Mastodon
©Joself Jelkic/The Epoch Times
The mastodon was found immediately outside the cave during a 2006 dig. The dig continues into 2009; who knows what other treasures might be unearthed.

It was a cool afternoon. A small gathering of people assembled at the Swabian village Stetten ob Lontal, in Germany. They waited for a guided trip to Vogelherd Cave.

It cannot be called a real cave, like one that allows you to descend deeply into the earth and that might feature artfully dripping stalactite and stalagmite sculptures, perhaps like the Charlotte Cave and other natural caves found in the Swabian Alps.

Excursion leader Brigitta Roeck led the group in stages up a soft, rain-soaked footpath. Ms. Roeck gave out snippets of information about climate and vegetation in the Aurignacia of 30,000 years ago.

What were people's days like back then? What did they eat? What thoughts did they have? We have only partial answers to our questions. Our limited knowledge is based on archeological discoveries. Aided by modern carbon-dating techniques, we may arrive at new interpretations.
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Bizarro Earth

Upstart Ice Age Theory Gets Attentive But Chilly Hearing

Richard A. Kerr
Science Magazine
Fri, 11 Jul 1997 22:52 UTC
Selling a new gizmo to replace a longtime favorite is always a tough job--especially if few are convinced that the original is broken. Physicist Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkeley, knows what it's like: For several years, he has been pitching a new way to drive the comings and goings of the ice ages. He's trying to displace the cherished Milankovitch mechanism in which cyclical changes in the elliptical shape of Earth's orbit shift the pattern of solar heating, triggering the buildup or melting of ice sheets.

Image
©R. MULLER AND G. MACDONALD
Battling curves. The single cycle of Earth's changing orbital inclination (green) seems a better match to climate (red) than the multiple cycles of orbital eccentricity (blue).
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Info

Hot And Cold: Circulation Of Atmosphere Affected Mediterranean Climate During Last Ice Age


Science Daily
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:43 UTC
A new study published in the scientific journal Science reveals the circulation of the atmosphere over the Mediterranean during the last ice age, 23,000 to 19,000 years ago, and how this affected the local climate.

ice age
©National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
Cold polar air often invaded the Mediterranean region during the last ice age, causing more rain and snow to fall on Mediterranean mountains.

This innovative study paves the way for future interdisciplinary efforts to understand and predict regional climate change, and is co-authored by Professor Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton School of Ocean and Earth Science, based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified the Mediterranean as a "future climate hot spot" likely to suffer increasingly from severe droughts, heat waves and wildfires, due to global climate change. This is potentially bad news for the many people who now live in the region.

The new work gives important clues about regional rainfall patterns in the past. This will help scientists check computer simulations of the Mediterranean climate, which is essential for predicting and planning for future climate in the region.
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Snowman

60 - 80 year "little ice age" coming


Reuters
Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:38 UTC
An expert from the National Autonomous University of Mexico predicted that in about ten years the Earth will enter a "little ice age" which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity.

Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the UNAM, presented his argument during a conference that teaches at the Centre for Applied Sciences and Technological Development.
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Meteor

Ice Age Diamonds May have been Transported South by Comet


IDEX
Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:28 UTC
A recently conducted study on diamonds and precious metals found in the eastern U.S. proposes that the minerals might have been transported through the air by a 3-mile wide comet that hit Canada during the last Ice Age.

It is clear to the researchers that diamonds, silver and gold found in Ohio and Indiana were transported there from Canada about 12,900 years ago, according to Live Science, but the question is how.
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Snowman

Ice Ages in Detail


Open Mind
Sat, 10 Feb 2007 04:09 UTC
In a previous post, I discussed the textbook theory of the causes of glacial advance and retreat for the last few million years. I'd like to take a close look at one of the best available records of past climate, the "LR04 stack."

Comment: For additional analysis on shorter period cycles of the last 100,000 years and their causes see The Younger Dryas Impact Event and the Cycles of Cosmic Catastrophes - Climate Scientists Awakening.

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Bug

Lyme Disease Bacterium Came From Europe Before Ice Age


Science Daily
Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:13 UTC
Researchers at the University of Bath have discovered that a bacterium that causes Lyme disease originated in Europe, rather than in North America as previously thought.

blacklegged tick
©CDC/ James Gathany; William Nicholson
The blacklegged tick Ixodes pacificus, a known vector for Borrelia burgdorferi, the pathogen responsible for Lyme disease.

The bacterium responsible for Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, originated in America, or so researchers thought. Now, however, a team from the University of Bath has shown that this bug in fact came from Europe, originating from before the Ice Age.

By understanding the origins of the bacterium and how it has evolved so far researchers hope to be able to predict how it will continue to develop, and so find ways to prevent its spread.
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Cloud Lightning

New Ice Age: Interviewing Geologist Jack Sauers

Elijah C. Boyd
The New Federalist newspaper
Mon, 26 Jan 1998 07:56 UTC
What edible grains will cold weather support?

How do you ensure the survival of cattle on the range, amidst deep snow drifts? If these problems are not met, how many people, will starve to death as the climate becomes colder?

These common sense questions are not usually taken up in the discussions of alleged global warming-climate change, by the little guru-groupies who are presented to the public as "Knowledgeable Climate Experts," but Washington State geologist Jack Sauers has not only investigated these questions, he is actively working with grain researchers and government officials to supply new, cold-resistant rye grain, as one means to help produce food as the world moves into a new ice age.

The beauty of Sauers's approach revolves around looking for the why of observed physical phenomena, thus allowing him to unify in the mind, the increase in ice mass of glaciers at both poles, the southward descent of boreal vegetation and animals, and the apparently unconnected phenomena of increased volcanic eruptions and El Nino events, as parts of a single astronomical-geologic process.
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Info

Greenland ice core analysis shows drastic climate change near end of last ice age


physorg.com
Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:42 UTC
Information gleaned from a Greenland ice core by an international science team shows that two huge Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes prior to the close of the last ice age some 11,500 years ago were tied to fundamental shifts in atmospheric circulation.

North Greenland Ice Core Project camp
©NGRIP
The North Greenland Ice Core Project camp.

The ice core showed the Northern Hemisphere briefly emerged from the last ice age some 14,700 years ago with a 22-degree-Fahrenheit spike in just 50 years, then plunged back into icy conditions before abruptly warming again about 11,700 years ago. Startlingly, the Greenland ice core evidence showed that a massive "reorganization" of atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere coincided with each temperature spurt, with each reorganization taking just one or two years, said the study authors.

The new findings are expected to help scientists improve existing computer models for predicting future climate change as increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere drive up Earth's temperatures globally.

The team used changes in dust levels and stable water isotopes in the annual ice layers of the two-mile-long Greenland ice core, which was hauled from the massive ice sheet between 1998 to 2004, to chart past temperature and precipitation swings. Their paper was published in the June 19 issue of Science Express, the online version of Science.

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