The last Mayan cycle was around 5,200 years ago. So did anything happen? Is there any reason to have concern as to what happens at the end of these cycles? Search what happened 10, 400 years ago. Look at the news headlines and see if you can spot any corollaries between this article and current events.
WHAT DO YOU THINK!
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/5200event.htm
(The story embargoed
until 1:40 PM PT Wednesday, December 15, 2004, to coincide with presentation
at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.)
MAJOR CLIMATE CHANGE OCCURRED 5,200 YEARS AGO: EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT
HISTORY COULD REPEAT ITSELF
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Glaciologist
Lonnie
Thompson worries that he may have found clues that show history repeating
itself, and if he is right, the result could have important implications
to modern society.
Thompson has spent his career trekking to the far corners of the world
to find remote ice fields and then bring back cores drilled from their
centers. Within those cores are the records of ancient climate from across
the globe.
 |
Lonnie
Thompson
|
From the mountains of data drawn by analyzing countless ice cores, and
a meticulous review of sometimes obscure historic records, Thompson and
his research team at Ohio State University are convinced that the global
climate has changed dramatically.
But more importantly, they believe it has happened at least once before,
and the results were nearly catastrophic to emerging cultures at the time.
He outlined his interpretations and fears today at the annual meeting
of the
American Geophysical Union in
San Francisco.
A professor of
geological
sciences at Ohio State and a researcher with the
Byrd
Polar Research Center, Thompson points to markers in numerous records
suggesting that the climate was altered suddenly some 5,200 years ago
with severe impacts.
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.
|
He points to perfectly preserved plants he discovered that recently emerged
from the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes as that glacier retreats.
This monstrous glacier, some 551 feet (168 meters) deep, has shown an
exponentially increasing rate of retreat since his first observations
in 1963.
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.
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.
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.
He points to ice core records showing the ratio of two oxygen isotopes
retrieved from the ice fields atop Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro. A
proxy for atmospheric temperature at the time snow fell, the records are
at their lowest 5,200 years before now.
He lists the shift by the Sahara Desert from a habitable region to a
barren desert; major changes in plant pollen uncovered from lakebed cores
in South America, and the record lowest levels of methane retrieved from
ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica and all occurred at the same time
– 5,200 years ago.
“Something happened back at this time and it was monumental,”
Thompson said. “But it didn’t seem monumental to humans then
because there were only approximately 250 million people occupying the
planet, compared to the 6.4 billion we now have.
“The evidence clearly points back to this point in history and
to some event that occurred. It also points to similar changes occurring
in today’s climate as well,” he said.
“To me, these are things we really need to be concerned about.”
The impact of a climate change of that magnitude on a modern world would
be tremendous, he said. Seventy percent of the population lives in the
world’s tropics and major climate changes would directly impact
most of them.
Thompson believes that the 5,200-year old event may have been caused
by a dramatic fluctuation in solar energy reaching the earth. Scientists
know that a historic global cooling called the Little Ice Age, from 1450
to 1850 A.D., coincided with two periods of decreased solar activity.
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.
“The climate system is remarkably sensitive to natural variability,”
he said. “It’s likely that it is equally sensitive to effects
brought on by human activity, changes like increased greenhouse gases,
altered land-use policies and fossil-fuel dependence.
“Any prudent person would agree that we don’t yet understand
the complexities with the climate system and, since we don’t, we
should be extremely cautious in how much we ‘tweak’ the system,”
he said.
“The evidence is clear that a major climate change is underway.”
