Ice Age and Climate info

Rasmussen, Ryan J. (Ryan.Rasmussen@mcnamee.com)
Tue, 25 Aug 1998 11:27:32 -0400

I highly recommend NOVA's "Warnings from the Ice". It documents the
research that is being conducted in Antarctica (and elsewhere) where
they are "drilling" through the ice with heated water to extract cores.
The cores are showing that "temperatures have risen by more than 20°C
(36°F) since the height of the Ice Age 25,000 years ago." The
researchers are afraid that the polar ice caps are on a time lag much
like when you take a frozen turkey out of the freezer. It takes a while
for the heat to reach the core of the turkey and bring it to a state of
equilibrium. If the caps are still melting as the core of the ice at
the poles comes to equilibrium, we could have some pretty major problems
ahead of us.

One thing that really amazed me by the data (reaching back 300,000
years) was the extremely wide fluctuations in global temperatures. This
last ice age was nothing compared to what has happened in the past.
They also showed evidence that at one point there was no ice at all at
the poles... can you imaging what the climate had to be like in those
days?

Here is the web page:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/warnings/

Very sobering and humbling.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jan de Koning [mailto:dekoning@attcanada.net]
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 1998 9:42 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Your book review in PERSPECTIVES, page 222, of Morton's
book

Just a question, Glenn, is it possible, that there were longtime changes
in
climates? I read somewhere that now the North Pole ice cap is melting
from
the bottom up, due to global warming. Connected with that would then
come
a change of the Gulf stream and thus a severe cooling of Europe, the
article said. Could something like that have happened in the past.
Is there an indication of a change in the angle of the "axle" of the
earth?
Is it true that the polarity of the earth changed? If so, how come,
and
does it involve climate change? What about the "Ice Age"?

I find these questions interesting, but don't have the time to really
research them. I don't even remember where I read about the above
suggestions in my questions.

Jan de Koning
Willowdale, Ont.