The Day After Tomorrow

The Ohio state university has some interesting research work going on - glaciologist Lonnie Thompson has expressed his worries over evidence that shows history repeating itself in the form of a drastic climatic change, that happened 5,200 years ago (3200 B.C.). Thompson and his research group believe that implications of the climatic change had been catastrophic for emerging cultures then, and that it could scale up to an even worse scenario if it happens again, considering the world's population of 6.4 billion. Not a very comforting prospect for man kind!

Evidence shows that around 5,200 years ago, solar output first dropped precipitously and then surged over a short period. It is this huge solar energy oscillation that Thompson believes may have triggered the climate change he sees in all those records.

Some of the notable markers in records suggesting that the climate was altered 5,200 years ago include, a perfectly preserved plant that recently emerged from the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes,

The plants were carbon-dated to determine their age and tests indicated they had been buried by the ice for perhaps 5,200 years. That suggests that somehow, the climate had shifted suddenly and severely to capture the plants and preserve them until now.

At Quelccaya, in july 2003 the OSU team that returned to the Quelccaya ice cap in the southern Andes of Peru to drill a new set of ice cores to bedrock.

the preserved body of a man trapped in an Alpine glacier (reminds me of Encino Man!),

In 1991, hikers found the preserved body of a man trapped in an Alpine glacier and freed as it retreated. Later tests showed that the human – dubbed Oetzi – became trapped and died around 5,200 years ago.

and narrow tree rings.

Thompson points to a study of tree rings from Ireland and England that span a period of 7,000 years. The point in that record when the tree rings were narrowest – suggesting the driest period experienced by the trees – was approximately 5,200 years ago.

A reason to associate such a climatic change to fluctuations of solar energy, is the well known fact that a historic global cooling called the Little Ice Age, from 1450 to 1850 A.D., coincided with two periods of decreased solar activity.

Scientists have identified two causes of the Little Ice Age from outside the ocean/atmosphere/land systems: decreased solar activity and increased volcanic activity. Research is ongoing on more ambiguous influences such as internal variability of the climate system, and anthropogenic influence (Ruddiman). Some have also speculated that depopulation of Europe during the Black Death, and the resulting decrease in agricultural output, may have prolonged the Little Ice Age.