Could a Prehistoric Meltdown Explain North America's Big Freeze?

[Ivan Seeking]

Meltdown blamed for big freeze
December 13, 2004
BY GARY WISBY Environment Reporter

Talk about a climate change: A University of Illinois at Chicago professor says he has found new evidence that a massive meltdown of polar ice 8,200 years ago put North America into a deep freeze for a century.

The "most dramatic climate change in the last 10,000 years" followed a flood of fresh water from a glacial reservoir into the salty water of the Gulf Stream, which controls our continent's weather. That led to a 43-degree temperature drop, said UIC's Torbjorn Tornqvist. [continued]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-flood13.html

 

[matthyaouw]

Interesting.
Tell me, has much evidence been left of the rate at which the climate warmed again after the event? Last I heard, it was hypothesised that the amount of energy required to re establish normal ocean circulation would be huge, and would take a very long time before the north atlantic drift could re establish itself. If it hasn't already, this could provide a good oppertunity to study the re establishment of the gulf stream after such an event. Any link to the research for this would be appreciated.

 

[Andre]

No, it was the heaviest Clathrate gun event that was ever recorded.

Storegga, Norwegian margin 8150 years BP A estimated 3500 kubic kilometres of Clathrate was converted to 160 time that space in Methane gas. It is reported by Jansen et al. (1987), Evans et al. (1996), Bouriak et al. (2000), Bryn et al. (2003)

And this is the source: table on page 2 (54)
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~mmaslin/publications/Maslin1.pdf

 

[Andre]

Reading that article again. I'm not impressed. There are a few strange things going on.

For instance:

Scientists believe the flood's source was a glacial reservoir called Lake Agassiz, holding twice the volume of the Caspian Sea in Eurasia, the world's largest inland sea.

According to this theory, all that fresh water gushed into the North Atlantic. There it mixed with the salty waters of the Gulf Stream.

The flooding mechanism is not mentioned in the article but for Lake Agasiz it is assumed failure of ice dams.

http://www.eos.ubc.ca/research/glaciology/Research/IceDam.html
And:

A University of Illinois at Chicago professor says he has found new evidence that a massive meltdown of polar ice 8,200 years ago put North America into a deep freeze for a century.

There is a huge problem however:

http://www.winona.msus.edu/geology/MRW/lecture12.html

By 9,000 yrs. b.p. Lake Agassiz was drained.

An empty lake flooded the Atlantic?