Younger Dryas Cooling Event
Chart of Earth’s Climate the Past 15,000 Years
Over seven billion people populate planet Earth today! This is hard to imagine when one considers that just 10,000 years ago the global population was an estimated five million. Perhaps even more astounding is the jump from one billion (1800) to seven billion (2010). This begs the question, “Just how many people can this planet house”?
Three thousand years ago, when the world population was around 27 million (the size of Delhi, India), God promised a man named Abraham that he would make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore (Genesis 22:17). Of course, the Almighty was expressing this promise in hyperbole, since the maximum number of stars a human eye can see on the darkest night is only 4,548. Interesting stats; so, what’s the point?
A recurring theme of most of my blogs is making a case for an Intelligent Designer (Creator) as opposed to natural causation; I’m always looking for the “Hand of God”, working behind the scenes. A recent article by Hugh Ross, “How Did Earth Get Its Long-Standing Stable Climate?” caught my interest. Here are some of the statements made in the article:
“Thanks to the extreme climate stability of the past 9,500 years, we have been successful in launching and sustaining global high-technology civilization and in building our population up to seven billion individuals.”
“It is nothing short of a miracle…that this (9,500 year) epoch of extreme climate stability…is occurring amid an ice age cycle.”
For all the bantering over ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’, usually in the context of a doom-and-gloom setting, why aren’t people talking more about this 9,500-year dispensation of what one might term “Climate Grace”? Ross goes on to say that the past 2.588 million years, which define multiple ice age cycles in a geologic age that geologists label the Pleistocene, represent the greatest continuous climate instability in the 4.566-billion-year history of Earth.
Let’s examine the “Chart of Earth’s Climate the Past 15,000 Years” (above) which plots the temperature of Greenland’s climate based on ice cores taken from the glaciers. The most obvious feature is the contrast between gigantic temperature swings (left half) and a relatively smooth, warm temperature profile (right half). Notice that about 14,000 years ago Earth was rapidly warming up as it emerged from the latest (Wisconsin) ice age. Then something weird happened; at 12,900 years-ago the warming trend reversed, and global temperatures suddenly fell 18 degrees F., a cold snap that lasted for 1200 years, ending abruptly 11,700 years-ago. Scientists have labeled this climate event the “Younger Dryas Cooling”. On a sobering note, the sharp ups and downs of the chart, representing 18-degree global temperature swings in as little as 20 to 50 years – a generation, expose just how fragile our planet is and how dependent we are on the providence of God.
Somewhere in Eternity-past God was making plans to populate Earth with his Image Bearers. For eons of geologic time, he had been about the business of accumulating natural resources to support a future global population of billions of humans – oil, gas, coal, iron ore, fresh water bodies of water, soils, and the like. Geologists have plotted four major glacial epochs over the past 400,000 years; each cycle lasted almost exactly 100,000 years, 92,000 years of cold (glacial) followed by a few thousand years of warm (interglacial). But something is different about this latest cycle; the warming cycle was prematurely reversed for a period of 1200 year – the Younger Dryas Event.
Scientists think Younger Dryas is somehow tied in to the extended 9,500 years of incredible climate stability, but they are still looking for reasons to help understand ‘why’. According to the past three major global glacial cycles, we should already be well on our way to entering the next ice age, but instead, all the rage seems to be over man-made global warming. A suspected effect of Younger Dryas Cooling is prematurely shutting off the warm oceanic Gulf Stream that flows northward along the coast of Florida making its way into frigid arctic oceans. The Gulf Stream is a factor in warming the arctic region which melts the ice cap. It may seem counter-intuitive, but when the polar ice is totally gone, the planet very rapidly plunges into a 100,000-year ice age cycle. Scientists are still working on a root cause for Younger Dryas; three main candidates have emerged: (1) the draining of ancient freshwater Lake Agassiz, located in central Canada and roughly five times larger than the Great Lakes combined, (2) the impact of a meteor or comet, (3) or a major, sustained northward shift in the jet stream over Canada.
Although Younger Dryas may have been what God used to get the 9500 years of climate stability rolling, he had some additional adjusting to do. 8,750 years-ago the tilt of Earth’s axis reached its peak of 24.5 degrees; this is the time when Earth receives maximum Sun exposure. Since then the tilt axis began to reverse toward its minimum 22.1 degrees, which it will reach 11,750 years from now; this is part of a 41,000-year Milankovitch Cycle. Earth should be cooling, but there are factors that offset the cooling with warming? The answer is Homo sapiens – mankind. The reasons are numerous and complex. Rather than provide an explanation, I’ll give you a few headlines:
- 1.5 Billion Domestic Cows Off-gas Methane Greenhouse Gas
- Burning Fossil Fuel Pumps CO2 Greenhouse Gas Into Atmosphere
- Decrease of Forest Land – Increase of Agricultural Land
- Global Expansion of Rice Crops
Next time you hear complaints about man-made global warming, remember this warming is helping to balance the cooling trend caused by the tilt of Earth’s axis.
Whatever the methodology, it appears the Divine decided Earth’s climate needed a little tweak – like the Younger Dryas – to set the stage for an extended season of stability. After all, Emmanuel was about to arrive in Bethlehem and make a way for his Image Bearers to enter Heaven. Having promised Abraham “countless” descendants – meaning God was preparing to populate Heaven with billions of Believers – a 9,500-year plus season of “Climate Grace” would be just what the doctor ordered. We’re living on borrowed time; the next ice age is immanent unless the Lord returns or extends this current grace period; otherwise, the world will enter the next predictable catastrophic season of climate tribulation characterized by roller-coaster temperature swings and the inability to support earth’s human population.
