Ice age on earth. How did people survive the Ice Age? When will the next Ice Age come?
Predictions about how our climate will change often contradict each other. What awaits us: global warming or a new ice age? Researchers suggest that it is both, just on different scales and at different times.
“The modern climate and natural environment were finally formed during the Quaternary period - a stage in the geological history of the Earth, which began 2.58 million years ago and continues to this day. This period is characterized by alternating glacial and interglacial eras. At certain stages, powerful glaciations occurred. Now we We live in a warm interglacial era, which is called the Holocene,” says the head of the laboratory of Cenozoic geology, paleoclimatology and mineralogical climate indicators of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy SB RAS, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Professor of NSU Vladimir Zykin.
When the first more or less reliable data on the climate of the Quaternary period appeared, it was believed that interglacial eras lasted only ten thousand years. The Holocene era in which we live began approximately ten thousand years ago, so many researchers at the end of the last century began to talk about the approach of global glaciation.
However, their conclusions were hasty. The fact is that the alternation of major glacial and interglacial eras is explained by the orbital theory developed by the Serbian researcher Milutin Milankovic in the 1920s. According to it, these processes are associated with changes in the Earth’s orbit as it moves around the Sun. The scientist calculated changes in orbital elements and made an approximate “glaciation schedule” in the Quaternary period. Milankovitch's followers calculated that the duration of the Holocene should be about 40 thousand years. That is, for another 30 thousand years, humanity can sleep peacefully.
However, the authors of the work are not sure that only people are to blame for these changes. The fact is that significant changes in the amount of CO 2 in the atmosphere were observed in those eras when not only anthropogenic impact, but also people did not exist on Earth. Moreover, according to comparative graphs, the increase in temperature is 800 years faster than the increase in carbon dioxide concentration.
The increase in CO 2 is apparently associated with an increase in water temperature in the World Ocean, which leads to the release of carbon dioxide from water and methane from bottom sediments. That is, apparently, we are talking about natural causes. Therefore, experts call for a more careful study of this area and not to “simplify” the approach to understanding the ongoing global changes, blaming them exclusively on people.
“The attitude of humanity to the problems of climate change is well reflected in the painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder “The Blind,” in which six blind people walk along a cliff,” concludes Professor Zykin.
Back in October 2014, the chairman of the presidium of the Tyumen scientific community of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Melnikov, said: “A long cold period is beginning in Russia.”
On Russian territory general temperature the earth's atmosphere is gradually decreasing. According to him, all this is due to cyclical climate changes in the earth’s atmosphere. The academician noted that a cold climate cycle has begun, and it can drag on for as long as 35 years, which is quite normal from a scientific point of view. According to experts, the cooling should have begun at the beginning of the 21st century, but due to increased solar activity, the warm cycle extended a little.
In November 2014, a scientist collaborating with NASA predicted mass deaths and food riots.
The reason is the upcoming extremely cold 30-year period.
John L. Casey, former White House National Space Policy Advisor, is president of Space and Science Research Corporation, an Orlando, Florida, climate research organization. His book debunked the theory of global warming,
As the scientist stated, over the next 30-year cycle, extreme cold, which will be caused by a historical decrease in energy output from the Sun, will have an impact on the entire world.
There will be a mass extinction of the human population due to extreme cold and starvation (world food supplies will drop by 50%).
“The data we have is serious and reliable,” Casey said.
At the beginning of 2015, more and more experts expressed the opinion that a new “Ice Age” was already on the threshold and that even then the abnormal weather was its first manifestations.
Coming Climate Chaos. The Little Ice Age is coming.
The Space and Research Corporation (SSRC) is an independent research institute based in Orlando, Florida, USA.
The SSRC has become the leading research organization in the United States on the science and planning for the next climate change associated with an extended Ice Age. The organization's particular concern is to warn governments, the media and people to prepare for these new climate changes that will take an eon.
In addition to the cold weather of this new climate era, the SSRC believes, as do other scientists and geologists, that there is a strong likelihood of record volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occurring during the next climate change.
At the end of 2015, scientists alarmingly declared that the World was on the brink of a 50-year Ice Age.
“Crippling blizzards, blizzards and sub-zero temperatures threaten humanity for the next fifty years - and perhaps decades more.
Climate experts are warning of a rare pattern of cooling water in the North Atlantic that is causing a chain reaction of events that will lead to a “full” Ice Age.
The chief meteorologist said it would impact the weather for years to come.
“The long-term consequences of changes in the Gulf Stream and other Atlantic Ocean currents are already catastrophic,” he added.
“The Atlantic currents have slowed down and the abnormally cold waters from Greenland remain unchanged, this partially blocks the flow warm water and, accordingly, warm air to Western Europe for many years.
The region's climate is changing, with London, Amsterdam, Paris and Lisbon experiencing steady cooling.”
A long-term forecast was made by expert Brett Anderson: “when there is such an anomaly in the atmosphere and ocean, the temperature will change greatly, you can be sure, and will change for many years.”
The warning comes just months after the Met Office warned the UK was facing another Little Ice Age.
But now, in connection with the newly discovered data, we can already say that the UK is facing a real “full” Ice Age.”
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Geographic weather forecast for the six years of the upcoming Mini-Ice Age.
And then 2018 came. Spring 2018. Residents of many cities did not feel its arrival. There are regions in Russia, too, where snow is still knee-deep. We will not cite all the examples of the abnormally cold spring this year. Only two messages in the last 24 hours.
In our material today: There will be no spring in Europe, snow will fall until mid-May.
And a message from America: Stop it! For 75 million Americans, winter has come instead of spring.
Unexpectedly for White House staffers, winter came again on Wednesday.
You can, of course, blame everything simply on “such a year” and say that “all this is nonsense.” But the world's weather forecasters and climatologists no longer think so.
Now we can already say that all the forecasts of those few scientists who sounded the alarm were completely justified.
Humanity slowly entered the Little Ice Age.
Meet! Little Ice Age!
As our correspondent reports from Geneva, a closed conference of weather forecasters and climatologists from around the world started there on Monday. About 100 people take part in it. Very serious issues related to abnormal weather and its catastrophic consequences on human life are considered. Here's what our correspondent Greg Davis tells us:
“Very little information reaches journalists so far. The conference is held behind closed doors. Few people know about her. Journalists were not allowed there. At the moment, according to available information, we can already say that the conference participants made several sensational statements, came to certain conclusions and are preparing an open report on the results of the conference.
Yesterday, one of the participants, a well-known weather forecaster from the USA (I don’t mention his name because they are not yet allowed to make official statements), gave a short interview on the basis of anonymity for one of the largest Swiss newspapers, Tribune de Geneve.
...He said that the conference considered a number of issues related to global climate change. The conference participants completely abandoned the “global warming” hypothesis and recognized it as false. Having considered the latest research results from specialists from all over the world, it was concluded that the planet is rapidly plunging into a cold period and this will lead to catastrophic consequences on human life...
It's an interesting end to this little interview. When the Tribune de Geneve journalist was already saying goodbye to this conference participant, he asked him a question: “What will you call the article with my interview?” To which the journalist replied that he did not know yet. Then the weather forecaster told him: “Make the title like this: Meet! Little Ice Age!
That's all we know here for now. We are waiting for the report to be published.”
Ecology
Ice ages, which took place more than once on our planet, have always been covered in a lot of mysteries. We know that they shrouded entire continents in cold, turning them into sparsely inhabited tundra.
It is also known about 11 such periods, and all of them took place with regular constancy. However, there is still a lot we don't know about them. We invite you to get to know the most interesting facts about the ice ages of our past.
Giant animals
By the time the last Ice Age arrived, evolution had already mammals appeared. Animals that could survive in harsh climatic conditions were quite large, their bodies were covered with a thick layer of fur.
Scientists named these creatures "megafauna", which was able to survive in low temperatures in areas covered with ice, such as in the area of modern Tibet. Smaller animals couldn't adapt to new conditions of glaciation and died.
Herbivorous representatives of megafauna learned to find food for themselves even under layers of ice and were able to adapt to the environment in different ways: for example, rhinoceroses ice age had spade-shaped horns, with the help of which they dug out snow drifts.
Predatory animals, e.g. saber-toothed cats, giant short-faced bears and dire wolves, survived well in new conditions. Although their prey could sometimes fight back due to their large size, it was in abundance.
Ice Age people
Despite the fact that modern man Homo sapiens could not boast of large size and wool at that time, he was able to survive in the cold tundra of the Ice Ages for many thousands of years.
Living conditions were harsh, but people were resourceful. For example, 15 thousand years ago they lived in tribes that hunted and gathered, built original dwellings from mammoth bones, and sewed warm clothes from animal skins. When food was abundant, they stocked up in the permafrost - natural freezer.
Mainly, tools such as stone knives and arrows were used for hunting. To catch and kill large animals of the Ice Age, it was necessary to use special traps. When an animal fell into such traps, a group of people attacked it and beat it to death.
Little Ice Age
Between major ice ages there were sometimes small periods. This is not to say that they were destructive, but they also caused hunger, illness due to crop failure and other problems.
The most recent of the Little Ice Ages began around 12th-14th centuries. The most difficult time can be called the period from 1500 to 1850. At this time, quite low temperatures were observed in the Northern Hemisphere.
In Europe, it was common for the seas to freeze, and in mountainous areas, such as what is now Switzerland, the snow didn't melt even in summer. Cold weather affected every aspect of life and culture. Probably, the Middle Ages remained in history as "Time of Troubles" also because the planet was dominated by the Little Ice Age.
Warming periods
Some ice ages actually turned out to be quite warm. Despite the fact that the surface of the earth was shrouded in ice, the weather was relatively warm.
Sometimes a sufficiently large amount of carbon dioxide accumulated in the planet’s atmosphere, which causes the appearance of greenhouse effect, when heat is trapped in the atmosphere and warms the planet. At the same time, ice continues to form and reflect the sun's rays back into space.
According to experts, this phenomenon led to the formation giant desert with ice on the surface, but rather warm weather.
When will the next ice age occur?
The theory that ice ages occur on our planet at regular intervals goes against theories about global warming. There is no doubt that today we are seeing widespread climate warming, which could help prevent the next ice age.
Human activities lead to the release of carbon dioxide, which is largely responsible for the problem of global warming. However, this gas has another strange by-effect. According to researchers from University of Cambridge, the release of CO2 could stop the next ice age.
According to our planet's planetary cycle, the next ice age is due to arrive soon, but it can only occur if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will be relatively low. However, CO2 levels are currently so high that an ice age is out of the question any time soon.
Even if people suddenly stop emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (which is unlikely), the existing amount will be enough to prevent the onset of the Ice Age for at least another thousand years.
Ice Age Plants
Life was easiest during the Ice Age predators: They could always find food for themselves. But what did herbivores actually eat?
It turns out that there was enough food for these animals too. During ice ages on the planet a lot of plants grew that could survive in harsh conditions. The steppe area was covered with bushes and grass, which mammoths and other herbivores fed on.
A great variety of larger plants could also be found: for example, they grew in abundance spruce and pine. Found in warmer areas birch and willow. That is, the climate, by and large, in many modern southern regions resembled the one found in Siberia today.
However, the plants of the Ice Age were somewhat different from modern ones. Of course, when cold weather sets in many plants have become extinct. If the plant was not able to adapt to the new climate, it had two options: either move to more southern zones or die.
For example, what is now the state of Victoria in southern Australia had the richest diversity of plant species on the planet until the Ice Age, which most of the species died.
Cause of the Ice Age in the Himalayas?
It turns out that the Himalayas, the highest mountain system on our planet, directly related with the onset of the Ice Age.
40-50 million years ago The land masses where China and India are located today collided, forming the highest mountains. As a result of the collision, huge volumes of “fresh” rocks from the bowels of the Earth were exposed.
These rocks eroded, and as a result chemical reactions Carbon dioxide began to be displaced from the atmosphere. The climate on the planet began to become colder and the ice age began.
Snowball Earth
During various ice ages, our planet was mostly shrouded in ice and snow. only partially. Even during the most severe ice age, ice covered only one third of the globe.
However, there is a hypothesis that during certain periods the Earth was still completely covered with snow, making her look like a giant snowball. Life still managed to survive thanks to rare islands with relatively little ice and enough light for plants to photosynthesize.
According to this theory, our planet turned into a snowball at least once, more precisely 716 million years ago.
Garden of Eden
Some scientists are convinced that Garden of Eden described in the Bible actually existed. It is believed that he was in Africa, and it was thanks to him that our distant ancestors were able to survive during the Ice Age.
Approximately 200 thousand years ago a severe ice age began, which put an end to many forms of life. Fortunately, a small group of people were able to survive the period of severe cold. These people moved to the area where South Africa is located today.
Despite the fact that almost the entire planet was covered with ice, this area remained ice-free. A large number of living beings lived here. The soils of this area were rich in nutrients, so there was abundance of plants. Caves created by nature were used by people and animals as shelters. For living beings it was a real paradise.
According to some scientists, there lived in the "Garden of Eden" no more than a hundred people, which is why humans do not have as much genetic diversity as most other species. However, this theory has not found scientific evidence.
Governments and public organizations They are actively discussing the coming “global warming” and measures to combat it. However, there is a well-founded opinion that in reality we are facing not warming, but cooling. And in this case, the fight against industrial emissions, which are believed to contribute to warming, is not only pointless, but also harmful.
It has long been proven that our planet is in a “high risk” zone. A relatively comfortable existence is provided to us by the “greenhouse effect,” that is, the ability of the atmosphere to retain heat coming from the Sun. And yet, global ice ages periodically occur, which are distinguished by a general cooling and a sharp increase in continental ice cover in Antarctica, Eurasia and North America.
The duration of the cold spells is such that scientists talk about entire glacial eras that lasted hundreds of millions of years. The last, fourth, Cenozoic, began 65 million years ago and continues to this day. Yes, yes, we live in an ice age, which is unlikely to end in the near future. Why does it seem to us that warming is happening?
The fact is that within the ice age there are cyclically repeating periods of time lasting tens of millions of years, which are called ice ages. They, in turn, are divided into glacial epochs, consisting of glaciations (glacials) and interglacials (interglacials).
All modern civilization arose and developed in the Holocene - a relatively warm period after the Pleistocene Ice Age, which reigned only 10 thousand years ago. A slight warming led to the liberation of Europe and North America from the glacier, which allowed the emergence of an agricultural culture and the first cities, which gave impetus to rapid progress.
For a long time, paleoclimatologists could not understand what caused the current warming. It was found that climate change is influenced by a number of factors: changes in solar activity, fluctuations in the earth's axis, the composition of the atmosphere (primarily carbon dioxide content), the degree of ocean salinity, the direction of ocean currents and wind roses. Painstaking research has made it possible to identify the factors that influenced modern warming.
About 20 thousand years ago, the glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere moved so far south that even a slight increase in the average annual temperature was enough for them to begin to melt. Fresh water filled the North Atlantic, slowing local circulation and thereby accelerating warming in the Southern Hemisphere.
Changing directions of winds and currents led to the fact that the water of the Southern Ocean rose from the depths, and carbon dioxide, which had remained “locked” there for millennia, was released into the atmosphere. The mechanism of the “greenhouse effect” was launched, which 15 thousand years ago provoked warming in the Northern Hemisphere.
Approximately 12.9 thousand years ago, a small asteroid fell in the central part of Mexico (now Lake Cuitseo is located at the site of its impact). Ash from fires and dust thrown into the upper atmosphere caused a new local cooling, which further contributed to the release of carbon dioxide from the depths of the Southern Ocean.
The cooling lasted for about 1,300 years, but in the end only strengthened the “greenhouse effect” due to the rapid change in the composition of the atmosphere. The climate “swing” once again changed the situation, and warming began to develop at an accelerating pace, the northern glaciers melted, freeing Europe.
Today, carbon dioxide from the depths of the southern part of the World Ocean is being successfully replaced by industrial emissions, and warming continues: during the 20th century, the average annual temperature increased by 0.7°C - a very significant amount. It would seem that one should be afraid of overheating, and not sudden cold weather. But it's not that simple.
It seems that the last onset of cold weather was a very long time ago, but humanity remembers well the events related to the “Little Ice Age”. This is how specialist literature refers to the severe European cold snap that lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
View of Antwerp with the frozen Scheldt River / Lucas van Valckenborch, 1590
Paleoclimatologist Le Roy Ladurie analyzed collected data on the expansion of glaciers in the Alps and Carpathians. He points to the following fact: the mines in the High Tatras, developed in the mid-15th century, were covered with ice 20 meters thick in 1570, and in the 18th century the ice thickness there was already 100 meters. At the same time, the advance of glaciers began in the French Alps. Written sources contained endless complaints from residents of mountain villages that glaciers were burying fields, pastures and houses.
Frozen Thames / Abraham Hondius, 1677
As a result, the paleoclimatologist states, “Scandinavian glaciers, synchronously with Alpine glaciers and glaciers in other areas of the world, have been experiencing the first, well-defined historical maximum since 1695,” and “in subsequent years they will begin to advance again.” One of the most terrible winters of the “Little Ice Age” occurred in January-February 1709. Here is a quote from a written source of that time:
From an extraordinary cold, the likes of which neither grandfathers nor great-grandfathers could remember<...>residents of Russia died and Western Europe. Birds, flying through the air, froze. In Europe as a whole, many thousands of people, animals and trees died.
In the vicinity of Venice, the Adriatic Sea was covered with standing ice. The coastal waters of England are covered in ice. The Seine and Thames are frozen. The frosts were just as severe in eastern North America.
In the 19th century, the “Little Ice Age” gave way to warming, and harsh winters became a thing of the past for Europe. But what caused them? And will this happen again?
Frozen lagoon in 1708, Venice / Gabriel Bella
People started talking about the potential threat of another ice age six years ago, when unprecedented frosts hit Europe. The largest European cities were covered in snow. The Danube, Seine, and the canals of Venice and the Netherlands froze. Due to icing and broken high-voltage wires, entire areas were without power, classes in schools stopped in some countries, and hundreds of people froze to death.
All these horrific events did not fit in with the concept of “global warming”, which had been fiercely discussed for a decade before. And then scientists had to reconsider their views. They noticed that the Sun is currently experiencing a decline in its activity. Perhaps it was this factor that became decisive, having a much greater impact on the climate than “global warming” due to industrial emissions.
It is known that the activity of the Sun changes cyclically over 10-11 years. The last 23rd (from the beginning of observations) cycle was indeed highly active. This allowed astronomers to say that the 24th cycle will be unprecedented in intensity, especially since something similar happened earlier, in the middle of the twentieth century. However, in this case, the astronomers were wrong. The next cycle was supposed to begin in February 2007, but instead there was a long period of solar “minimum”, and the new cycle began late in November 2008.
The head of the space research laboratory of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Khabibullo Abdusamatov, claims that our planet passed the peak of warming in the period from 1998 to 2005. Now, according to the scientist, the activity of the Sun is slowly declining and will reach its minimum in 2041, which is why a new “Little Ice Age” will begin. The scientist expects the peak of cooling in the 2050s. And it can lead to the same consequences as the cold snap in the 16th century.
However, there is still reason for optimism. Paleoclimatologists have established that warming periods between ice ages are 30-40 thousand years. Ours lasts only 10 thousand years. Humanity has a huge supply of time. If in such a short period by historical standards people managed to rise from primitive agriculture to space flights, then we can hope that they will find a way to cope with the threat. For example, they will learn to control the climate.
Materials from an article by Anton Pervushin were used,