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IGA Lecture: Joe Phelan – The Younger Dryas Period & the Failure of the Gulf Stream, Could it fail again?
9 December, 2015 @ 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM GMT
Dear Member,
You are cordially invited to the last IGA talk – but not the last IGA event – for 2015. It is by IGA council member Joe Phelan, and, given that climate change is something of a hot topic, this one could raise the temperature even further. Miss it at your peril!
The details are as follows:
The talk will take place on Wednesday December 9th at the Geological Survey of Ireland, Beggars Bush (off Haddington Road, Dublin 4) between 6: 30 and 7: 30 pm. Coffee and biscuits will be available from 5: 30 pm . All Welcome!
Abstract:
Warming of Earth’s climate from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene was interrupted by three climate oscillations when a cold phase returned. The longest lasting and the coldest of these oscillations was termed the Younger Dryas. The study seeks to understand how such a cold oscillation occurred by researching the relevant literature. Evidence that accelerated melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet in recent years is examined in the context of its possible contribution to a renewed climate oscillation. Climate change as a consequence of planetary warming suggests the YD period is important to understand as the onset was quick, being less than a human life-span. Dynamic mass loss within the Greenland Ice Sheet is occurring today presenting the spectre that abrupt climate change, initiated by this melting, could return the Northern hemisphere to an ice age.