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ABRUPT CLIMATIC CHANGE more active than it is at present. The solar wind outflow at that The worst would be yet to come. The superwave cosmic ray time would have to have been at least an order of magnitude more wind would vaporise frozen cometary debris that surrounds our intense than it has been in historic times, with solar flare activity solar system and blow this dust and gas inward. Analysis of comparably elevated and the Sun somewhat more luminous than Greenland ice cores has shown that the solar system was filled the Sun of the current interglacial. with large concentrations of cosmic dust during the last ice age.” This evidence of an active Sun heralding the deglacial warming As this nebular material entered the inner solar system, it would _ trend confirmed a scenario that I had proposed back in 1983; scatter sunlight so that a portion of the Earth's radiation would namely, that our Sun had become significantly energised by come from a uniform glow filling both the daytime and night-time incoming cosmic dust and as a result caused a global warming sky. It would also redden the solar radiation spectrum. Since our that ended the last ice age. By cross-referencing the Byrd ice core atmosphere is opaque to infrared radiation, these changes would _ glacial record with the accurately dated Summit, Greenland, ice tend to warm the upper atmosphere and cool the ground, produc- core record, I was able to determine that this event spanned a peri- ing inversion conditions that would induce severe storm activity od of 95 years stretching from about 13,880 to 13,785 BC. The and rapid precipitation of sleet and ice. Moreover, as this material finding also underlines the importance of the 13,860 years BC crashed onto the Sun's surface it would energise the Sun, increas- date encoded in ancient constellation lore (see box headed ing its luminosity and its cosmic ray output. "Message in the Sky"). All of these effects together would dramatically affect the This discovery that the Sun was highly energised at the end of Earth's climate.'*°'° On some occa- i the last ice age confirms an earlier dis- ‘ . jee Core Depth (metres) war sions, it would produce a prolonged A ry anno — — covery made by NASA scientist Herbert Zook and his team.'’ Based on the record of solar flare tracks etched in the surface of Moon rocks, they concluded that 16,000 years ago solar flare activity was up to 50-fold higher and that it rapidly declined in the following millennia. I have sug- gested that solar activity had reached a peak around 12,200 BC, when global warming was at a maximum, and also briefly around 10,700 BC at the time of the Late Pleistocene mass extinc- tion—an event that appears to have cold spell or even initiate an ice age if one were not already in progress; at other times, it could produce a period of excessive warmth which could ter- minate an existing ice age or produce a brief interstadial. The geologic record reveals that our planet has been plagued by ice ages for most of the past several million years. The warm cli- mate that we have been enjoying dur- ing the current 11,600-year-long inter- glacial has been acccompanied by an equally long respite between super- Js waves. However, interglacials, and B10 ean Bolom Preson (1000) i been solar-induced.* The period of respites between major superwave Figure 2: The lower graph plots cosmic ray intensity variations at several thousand years between the onslaughts, have rarely been as pro- _| the Earth's surface during the past 145,000 years; see The Talk of| time of the solar wind event and these longed as the one we are fortunate _ | the Galaxy." These values were derived from beryllium-10 isotope} dates would have been a time when enough to be experiencing. The next | 2oncentrations found in the Vostok (East Antarctica) ice core") solar activity was building up to its cli- which were adjusted to correct for variations in ice accumulation superwave, which appears to be over- | rate and solar activity. The upper graph plots global climate. The} aX. oo due, could throw us headlong into a | numbered climatic zones include: the present interglacial (1), the Concerned about the potential cli- new ice age. last ice age (2, 3, 4), a semiglaciated interval (5a-5d), the last inter-! matic hazards associated with galactic The Earth's polar ice record contains glacial (Se), and the previous glaciation (6). superwaves, the chairman of the evidence that the Sun was in fact very active at the end of the last | United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and ice age. Glaciologists, for example, have studied the acidity Transportation voiced interest in my proposal to carry out a thor- record at Byrd Station, Antarctica, going back 50,000 years and ough investigation into the climatic implications of the galactic found one section, dating from near the end of the last ice age, in superwave phenomenon. In September 1984, he wrote the fol- which ice acidity levels rose far higher than in any other part of lowing letter to the Director of the National Science Foundation: the ice record (see figure 1).'*" These levels exceed by 20-fold Dr LaViolette has presented to the Committee extremely inter - the amount of acid fallout deposited by the largest known vol- esting research results and scientific papers written on experi - canic eruption. This discovery confounded scientists, not only ments conducted at Portland State. His research addresses the because of its magnitude but because it lasted an entire century abrupt changes that have occurred over geological time. He with the acidity fallout waxing and waning in regular cycles. No hypothesizes that such changes are the result of sudden incur - volcanic eruption has been known to do this. Nevertheless, they sions of cosmic dust into our solar system, causing dramatic realised that this event must have had a substantial climatic temperature changes. impact, for it occurred at the beginning of a major global warm - 1am interested to know if research in major climatic shifts is ing trend that ultimately ended the ice age. presently being funded by NSF and, if so, are the investigators However, upon examining these acidity findings, I noticed aware of Dr LaViolette's hypothesis. Needless to say, the phe - something that apparently had been overlooked. When the ice nomenon of sudden climatic shifts has enormous import to all of record is properly dated, it shows that these acidity peaks recur on us, and all reasonable hypotheses should be carefully examined. the average every 11 years, matching the period of the sunspot cycle. This indicates that these high acidity concentrations most The NSF and other government science institutions, however, probably originate from the Sun rather than from volcanic erup- have failed to fund research into this important phenomenon. tions.'* But, to make such a pronounced and singular solar cycle Academia, with its uniformitarian bias, also has done nothing to imprint in the ice record, the Sun would have to have been far pick up the ball. The NSF and other government science institutions, however, have failed to fund research into this important phenomenon. Academia, with its uniformitarian bias, also has done nothing to pick up the ball. NEXUS -53 ABRUPT CLIMATIC CHANGE FEBRUARY — MARCH 2001