Main reason for Big Freeze identified
AN academic at Sheffield University has helped to identify the main cause of a rapid global cooling period, known as the Big Freeze, which occurred nearly 13,000 years ago.
The research team, which included Dr Mark Bateman from Sheffield University, discovered that a flood caused by the melting of the Laurentide ice sheet in North America resulted in huge amounts of fresh water mixing with the salt water of the Arctic Ocean. As a result, more ice was created, which flowed into the North Atlantic, causing the northward continuation of the Gulf Stream to shut down.
Without the heat being brought across the Atlantic by the Gulf Stream, temperatures in Europe plunged back to glacial temperatures – a cooling event called the Younger Dryas period.
Dr Bateman said: "The findings of this paper allow an insight into what must have been one of the most catastrophic geological events in recent earth's history."