‘It would be the equivalent of taking Britain and moving it to the Arctic over the space of a few months,’ said geological sciences professor William Patterson, who led the research.
I’ve been saying that ice ages begin in less than 20 years, but this study, published in 2009, found that the last ice age came on far, far faster than that.
Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by the Younger Dryas mini ice age, or “Big Freeze”, says this article in New Scientist. “It was triggered by the slowdown of the Gulf Stream, led to the decline of the Clovis culture in North America, and lasted around 1300 years.”
“JUST months – that’s how long it took for Europe to be engulfed by an ice age,” the study found.
Professor Patterson scraped off layers of mud just 0.5 mm thick from a lake in Western Ireland. Each layer represented three months of sediment deposition, so he could measure changes in temperature over very short periods.
He found that temperatures had plummeted, with the lake’s plants and animals rapidly dying over just a few months
His findings emerged from one of the most painstaking studies of climate changes ever attempted and reinforce the theory that the earth’s climate can switch between warm and cold incredibly quickly.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427344.800-mini-ice-age-took-hold-of-europe-in-months.html
Thanks to Sonya Porter for this link
They may call it a ‘mini’ ice age, but for anyone living at the time, 1,300 years would have spanned how many generations?
Let’s see. If you take 1,300 years and divide it by 21, you get 61 generations. Certainly would be a game changer.