HUGH ROSS

W E AT H E R I N G
C L I M AT E C H A N G E
A F RESH A PPROACH

Covina, CA
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Names: Ross, Hugh (Hugh Norman), 1945-, author.

Title: Weathering climate change : a fresh approach / by Hugh Ross.
Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. | Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2020.
Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-886653-95-5
Subjects: LCSH Global warming. | Climatic change. | Human ecology--Religious aspects--Christianity.
| Environmentalism--Religious aspects--Christianity. | BISAC SCIENCE / Global Warming & Climate
Change | RELIGION / Religion & Science | SCIENCE / Earth Sciences / General | SCIENCE / Physics
/ Geophysics
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 Contents
List of Figures and Tables 9
Acknowledgments 11
Preface 13
Part 1: Confusing News
1. Popular Opinion on Climate Change 17
2. What Current Data Says about Climate Change 23
3. Warming Projections 39
4. A Response to the Current Data 47
Part 2: Surprising News
5. Our Unique Climate Epoch 57
6. The Importance of Ice 65
7. Why an Ice Age Cycle? 73
8. Ice Age Cycle Benefits 81
9. Optimizing Earth’s Hydrosphere and Atmosphere 95
10. Earth’s Exceptional Orbital Properties 109
11. Earth’s Unique Solar History 117
12. How the Ice Age Cycle Began 129
13. A Crucial Transition 143
14. The Marvel of Climate Stability 149
15. Gifts for the Human Soul 163
16. Aligned Habitability Windows 167
Part 3: Essential News
17. Narrow Habitability Windows 181
18. The Coming Big Chill 187
19. Facing the Inevitable 193
20. Prolonging Climate Stability 199
Part 4: Good News
21. Significance of Our Time and Place 221
22. Our Ultimate Home—and Hope 225
Appendix: Explanations for the Mid-Pleistocene Transition 229
Notes 239
Index 293
About the Author 303
About Reasons to Believe 305
 Chapter 14

The Marvel of Climate Stability

T o grasp and appreciate the wonder of our current 9,500-year era of ex-
treme climate stability, we need perspective. The word extreme seems ap-
propriate since temperature proxies at sites all over the world show twice the
unprecedented steadiness scientists had previously noted.1 Over the last 9,500
years, the global mean temperature has varied by no more than ±0.65°C.
What makes this stability so astounding is that it has occurred during an
ice age cycle characterized by extreme climate instability. By its very nature, an
ice age cycle drives radical variations in the global mean temperature, varia-
tions that render life as we know it impossible.

Instability as the Norm

At least 12 astronomical cycles influence the magnitude and the timing of
Earth’s surface temperature variations and the magnitude and periodicity of
the ice age cycle. Obliquity (rotation axis tilt) changes are expressed through
at least three cycles: (1) a mean period of 41,040 years, (2) a period of 173,000
years, and (3) a period of 1,200,000 years.2 Orbital eccentricity is governed
by at least six distinct cycles with periodicities of 95,000 years, 125,000 years,
405,000 years, 1,200,000 years, 1,600,000 years, and 2,400,000 years, respec-
tively.3 The perihelion precession cycle of Earth’s orbit has a periodicity that
ranges from 19,000 to 23,000 years. The axial precession, relative to fixed stars,
operates on a 25,772-year cycle. Earth’s orbital inclination variation has a cycli-
cal period equal to 70,000 years. As described in chapter 13, more than a dozen
other noncyclical variable phenomena also influence the magnitude and peri-
odicity of the ice age cycle.
The operation of all these cycles and variable influences throughout the
entirety of the 2.58-million-year ice age cycle epoch (dubbed the Quaternary)
has generated chaotic temperature swings on Earth’s surface. They explain why
150 Weathering Climate Change

Figure 14.1: Antarctic Temperature Record for the Past Four Ice Age Cycles
Temperatures (°C ) on y-axis are in relative to the average for 1900–1950. Image credit (curve):
Robert A. Rohde, Global Warming Art Project, CC-by-SA; Diagram credit: Hugh Ross

severe climate instability characterizes the Quaternary, with global mean tem-
peratures jumping up and down by 4–10°C (7–18°F) on timescales of just a few
centuries. The past 2.58 million years have seen the greatest continuous climate
instability in Earth’s entire 4.566-billion-year history—with the single excep-
tion of the past 9,500 years.

An Unusual Interruption
One Data show that roughly every 100,000 years,
the global mean temperature rises very briefly
uncharacteristic to about 2°C above the current global mean,
phenomenon which in the first decade of the twentieth
century was 14.5°C (58.1°F).4 Whenever it
changed reaches that level, Earth quickly drops into a
roughly 90,000-year-long glacial period, dur-
everything for ing which thick sheets of ice cover 20–23 per-
humanity. cent of Earth’s surface (see figure 14.1).
This rapid temperature rise followed by
an even more rapid temperature drop has
 The Marvel of Climate Stability 151

Figure 14.2: Younger Dryas Cooling Event

The temperature figures represent the surface air temperature in the central region of Green-
land’s ice sheet. The relatively flat curve to the right shows the newly determined temperature
record of the past 9,500 years (see chapter 5). The curve to the left shows the temperature re-
cord from 17,000–9,500 years ago derived from oxygen-18 isotope measures in ice cores drilled
in the central region of Greenland’s ice sheet. The two dotted lines delineate the start and end
times of the Younger Dryas event. Data for the curve to the right from Shaun A. Marcott et al.,
“A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years,” Science 339
(March 8, 2013): 1198–1201, doi:10.1126/science.1228026 and Andy May, “A Holocene Tem-
perature Reconstruction Part 4: The Global Reconstruction,” Watts Up With That? (blog), June
9, 2017, https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/09/a-holocene-temperature-reconstruction-
part-4-the-global-reconstruction/. Data for curve to the left from United States Geological Sur-
vey. Diagram credit: Hugh Ross

been the pattern throughout the last four ice age cycles, but then something
unprecedented occurred. A brief, but dramatic, cooling period caused that rise
to stall. And that one uncharacteristic phenomenon changed everything for
humanity.

A Monumental Anomaly
Known as the Younger Dryas, this cooling event extended from 12,900 to
11,700 years ago (see figure 14.2).
This “interruption” to the warming period appears unique within the
152 Weathering Climate Change

Figure 14.3: Lake Agassiz just before the Beginning of the Younger Dryas Event
By 13,000 years ago, the North American ice sheets in the west had largely melted away, leaving
behind a gigantic lake of glacial meltwater. Meanwhile, the Laurentide Ice Sheet remained. It
covered the entire Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Hudson Bay, the eastern Northwest Territories
as far west as Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes, and Ontario and Quebec down to within a few
tens of miles north of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River with ice more than 500 meters
(1,700 feet) thick. Background image credit: NASA

Quaternary. Amid the typical rise in global mean temperature came a sudden
drop of 10°C (18°F), which continued for 1,200 years. Then came a quick rise
of 13°C (23°F). Both the sudden drop and rise occurred over periods of just
20–50 years.5
While these temperature readings come from central Greenland, the rest of
the mid- and high-latitude Northern Hemisphere landmasses would have felt
the impact of this cooling episode to nearly the same degree. The tropical and
Southern Hemisphere landmasses were affected to a substantial degree, as well.6
Scientists generally agree on what caused the Younger Dryas anomaly, but
what triggered the cause has been debated for decades. The accepted cause
was a complete (or nearly complete) shutdown of the Gulf Stream portion of
the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC),7 a large system of
ocean currents that ensures a continual mixing of the world’s ocean water. A
 The Marvel of Climate Stability 153

cessation of the Gulf Stream’s flow of warm tropical water into the North At-
lantic would have stopped and reversed the melting of the great North Ameri-
can and European ice sheets. The retention and growth of these great ice sheets
would have cooled all the continents, especially North America, Europe, and
northern Asia.
We know from at least three lines of evidence what caused a breakdown
of the AMOC at the time of the Younger Dryas. First, the Southern Ocean
waters became warmer8 as a result of the AMOC’s redirection into tropical
waters. Second, cold water flowed from the seas adjacent to East Greenland
and Iceland into the Nordic seas.9 Third, injection of cold fresh water into the
North Atlantic from sources in the northernmost regions of North America
interrupted normal deep and intermediate-depth ocean circulations.10

Quest to Solve a Challenging Puzzle

According to the most widely accepted explanation for what caused the AMOC
disruption, an unusually large quantity of glacial meltwater flowed into the
North Atlantic from Lake Agassiz (figure 14.3). This rush of cold fresh water
turned back the flow of warm saltwater from the tropical regions of the Atlan-
tic.
Lake Agassiz formed during the deglaciation of North America 13,000
years ago, and when it formed, its waters drained southward into the Gulf of
Mexico. However, something interrupted this flow at the time of the Young-
er Dryas.11 Sudden breaches to the east and north of Lake Agassiz caused a
rush of meltwater to burst through the Saint Lawrence River eastward into
the North Atlantic,12 northward through the Mackenzie River into the Beau-
fort Sea (along the Canadian Archipelago) through the Fram Strait into the
Nordic seas,13 and/or under the Laurentide Ice Sheet (ice covering the Hudson
Bay region and eastern Canada) into the North Atlantic. But, what could have
triggered these breaches?
In 2007, a team of physicists, geologists, anthropologists, and chemists
studying prehistoric American Paleo-Indian culture sites across North Ameri-
ca found some unusually thin sedimentary layers. In them the team discovered
magnetic grains containing iridium, magnetic microspherules, charcoal, soot,
glass-like carbon containing nanodiamonds, and fullerenes with extraterrestri-
al helium. These layers were dated to 12,900 years ago, the start of the Younger
Dryas.14
These ingredients point to an extraterrestrial impact event. The team
concluded that a large extraterrestrial object exploded over northern North
154 Weathering Climate Change

America, destabilizing the Laurentide Ice Sheet and thereby triggering the
Younger Dryas.
Some scientists questioned whether the nanodiamonds15 and charcoal/
soot16 qualified as evidence for such a collision. Meanwhile, Harvard planetary
scientists observed a large platinum anomaly in the Greenland ice cores—a
signature of an iron asteroid with less than the usual iridium abundance—that
also corresponded to the onset of the Younger Dryas.17 The Harvard research-
ers calculated the asteroid must have been at least 0.8 kilometers in diameter.
In a formal reply to the Harvard team’s paper, physicist Mark Boslough ex-
pressed serious doubt about such a collision event.18 He argued that collisions
with iron asteroids as large as 0.8 kilometers are extremely rare events, occur-
ring only once every tens of millions of years. For the Eltanin impactor, plus
two others not quite so large (the Spratly Islands impactor [see appendix] and
the newly proposed North American impactor), to have struck within a mere
2.58-million-year time window defied credulity, at least in Boslough’s opinion.
Further, by his calculations, an iron asteroid collision of such magnitude would
have yielded a crater 15–20 kilometers in diameter. No way, Boslough claimed,
could such a large crater created as recently as 12,900 years ago have eluded
discovery.
Boslough countered that the Cape York meteorite, with its eight large iron
fragments together weighing more than 60 tons found in northwestern Green-
land, caused the platinum anomaly. Their common chemical makeup and ele-
ment abundance ratios affirm that they are all from the same parent body.
The Harvard team disagreed.19 They pointed out that the platinum anoma-
ly had persisted far too long in the Greenland GISP2 ice core to be attributed to
the Cape York meteorite, even if it were 10–100 times larger than the combined
mass of the eight large fragments. They stood by their claim that the platinum
anomaly resulted from an extraterrestrial impactor large enough to generate
global consequences.
In 2013, two other researchers joined the original 2007 group (for a total of
28 scientists) to bring forth new evidence that bolstered the case. Their analysis
of 700 spherules (glass droplets formed from asteroid impact) recovered from
18 sites in North America, Europe, and the Middle East20 proved “consistent
with melting of sediments to temperatures greater than 2,200°C (4,000°F) by
thermal radiation and air shocks produced by passage of an extraterrestrial
object through the atmosphere”21 and “inconsistent with volcanic, cosmic, an-
thropogenic, lightning, or authigenic [generated on site] sources.”22 Together
these 28 scientists determined that 12,800 years ago, 10 million tonnes (11
 The Marvel of Climate Stability 155

Figure 14.4: Greenland Map Showing the Site of the Impactor

In the main image, the dot near the northwest coast of Greenland shows the location and size
of the impact crater. This inset image shows the impactor site and size relative to the edge of the
Hiawatha ice field. The Hiawatha ice field is on the right. Canada’s Ellesmere Island is to the left.
The circle indicates the impact crater site and size. Image credit: ETOPO1 Global Relief Model,
National Centers for Environmental Information and Eric Gaba

million tons) of spherules blasted across 50 million square kilometers (20 mil-
lion square miles) on four continents due to a monstrous and previously un-
known extraterrestrial impact event.

A Well Hidden Clue

What the 28 proposed and what Boslough and others deemed “nearly impos-
sible” really did happen. The astonishing discovery was published on Novem-
ber 14, 2018, in Science Advances by a team of international colleagues.23 Their
incredible find was an impact crater in northwestern Greenland (see figure
14.4) measuring 31.1±0.3 kilometers (19.3±0.2 miles) in diameter hidden 930
meters (3,050 feet) below the Hiawatha ice field (see figure 14.4 inset).
Airborne ice-penetrating radar revealed a circular bedrock depression with
an elevated rim 320 meters (1,050 feet) above the crater floor. At the center of
the crater sat an actively eroding central mound 50 meters (164 feet) high. The
156 Weathering Climate Change

circular bedrock depression, the elevated rim, and the central mound are tell-
tale features of an impact crater.
In the sediment from the largest river draining the crater, the team found
shocked quartz and other impact-related grains. Many of the quartz grains
showed evidence of toasting, “a brown coloration due to intense post-shock
hydrothermal alteration of the shock lamellae.”24 The team’s analysis of these
grains and of the shocked quartz indicated that the impactor was a fractionated
iron asteroid. From this analysis and the crater’s size the team calculated the
impactor’s size: 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) in diameter.
Crushed subsamples of the recovered glaciofluvial sediments revealed el-
evated concentrations of nickel, cobalt, chromium, gold, and platinum group
elements. These concentrations were consistent with a rare “strongly fraction-
ated Duchesne (type IVA) iron meteorite.”25

Dating the Hiawatha Impact

Trying to determine the date for this Hiawatha impact event presents yet an-
other challenge. Thus far, eight lines of evidence point to its correspondence
with the Younger Dryas cooling:

1. Matching Greenland ice core data with radar stratigraphy maps of

the area of the Hiawatha ice field overlaying the crater revealed a se-
quence of “cleaner ice” that corresponded with the past 11,700 years.
This cleaner ice was distinct from the “visually dark and debris-rich
ice” from the Younger Dryas cold period of 12,800 to 11,700 years
ago.26 Specifically, the team matched the jumbled-up ice in the deep
interior layers of the crater with debris-rich surface ice on the edge of
the crater rim, previously dated to 12,800 years ago.
2. Within the crater structure itself, radar stratigraphy maps showed a
complete lack of “reflection-rich Bølling-Allerød ice (14.7 to 12.8 ka)
from the period immediately before the Younger Dryas.”27
3. The fact that the Hiawatha crater “still has a significant portion of its
original surface topographic expression,”28 implies that it must be only
thousands, not hundreds of thousands or millions, of years old. This
topographic expression is present in no other known large impact cra-
ter.
4. Based on the Hiawatha ice field’s current ice flow speeds at the crater
site, “most impact ejecta deposited onto the ice sheet would have been
transported to the ice margin within ~10 ka.”29 In other words, the lack
 The Marvel of Climate Stability 157

of impact ejecta on the ice sheet argues for an impact date prior to
10,000 years ago.
5. Fluvial and subglacial erosion rates provide a rough determination of
the time required for the crater’s calculated original rim height, rough-
ly 800 meters high, to wear down to its current 320 meters (1,050 feet).
That figure ranges from a minimum of 5,000 years to a maximum of
50,000. Radar evidence of active subglacial erosion and active sediment
deposition at the ice field front favors an age much closer to 5,000 than
to 50,000 years.
6. Detailed modeling of hydrothermal systems within Mars’s impact cra-
ters establishes that a 30-kilometer-wide (19-mile-wide) impact crater
would endure there for about 100,000 years.30 However, the Hiawatha
impact crater’s overlying ice sheet would have exported heat much
more efficiently than any mechanism available to the Martian analog.
Thus, current hydrothermal systems operating in the Hiawatha impact
crater argue for an age younger than 20,000 years.
7. The exceptional jaggedness of the crater bottom indicates that little
erosion has occurred. The radar mapping showed deep layers of jum-
bled-up ice, another sign of a recent impact. The disturbed ice patterns
in the crater’s interior demonstrate that the ice sheet over the crater
has not yet equilibrated. The combination of the crater bottom mor-
phology (form) and the features of the overlying ice indicate a likely
date for the impact event of 10,000–15,000 years ago.
8. Given the size of the Hiawatha crater, the impactor certainly would
have generated a major, long-lasting global cooling event, and the only
such cooling event within the last 20,000 years is the Younger Dryas.

All these lines of evidence connect the timing and effects of the Hiawatha
impact event to the Younger Dryas cooling event. As the team’s paper cautious-
ly noted, however, an accurate, definitive date will require drilling through the
thick ice to the crater floor, down to the rocks there that would have melted at
impact and reset their radioactive clocks. Radioactive dates of many such rocks
will yield a precise date for the Hiawatha impact event.
As for the claim that such large asteroid collision events occur only once
every few tens of millions of years, studies by two Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) astronomers indicate otherwise. Using the best available
data in 2004 on near-Earth objects,31 the two astronomers calculated that as-
teroids 1 kilometer in diameter or larger strike somewhere on Earth once every
158 Weathering Climate Change

500,000–700,000 years.32 Much larger data sets of near-Earth asteroids assem-

bled in 2014 yielded results consistent with their 2004 conclusions.33 Therefore,
the occurrence of three major impact events within the past 2.58 million years
does not defy credulity.

Observed Effects Confirm the Trigger

The case for the Hiawatha impactor as the trigger for the Younger Dryas event
receives confirmation from the close match between the expected effects of
such an event and the observed effects. Based on its size, composition, location,
and timing, the Hiawatha impactor undoubtedly would have triggered—and
clearly did trigger—a global cooling event.
The impact delivered enormous quantities of debris, dust, and water va-
por into the atmosphere and blocked much solar radiation from reaching
Earth’s surface for at least several months, if not years. This blockage would
have dropped Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures by several degrees
Celsius. Such a temperature decline, combined with the extra load of water va-
por, would have caused a buildup of snow, which would have dropped surface
temperatures even further.
The impact would also have melted at least 1,500 billion tons of Green-
land’s ice. This meltwater pouring into the North Atlantic, though not the
dominant factor,34 would have contributed to disruption of the AMOC and,
thereby, to the cooling of all the landmasses facing the North Atlantic Ocean.
For decades, geologists have been mystified as to what blocked the outflow
of Lake Agassiz into the Gulf of Mexico and redirected it into the North Atlan-
tic. An intense rain of huge rocks blasted up from the impact and falling upon
the northern and mid-latitude regions of North America provides a reasonable
solution to that mystery.
In addition to changing the North Atlantic currents and North American
waterways, the Hiawatha impact event would have pelted the continent (and
Europe, too) with fire-igniting debris.35 Although not totally responsible, as
some claim,36 for the extinction of North America’s and Europe’s megafauna
(large animals) and the demise of North America’s Clovis culture (ancestors
of American indigenous people), the Hiawatha impactor certainly would have
contributed.
Brown University planetary scientists Elizabeth Silber and Brandon John-
son explain why some Greenland ice cores don’t show evidence of a recent gi-
ant impact.37 Using models they had developed for impacts on the icy moons
of Jupiter and Saturn, Silber and Johnson show that thick ice suppresses the
 The Marvel of Climate Stability 159

spread of impact debris. This suppression implies that the colder temperatures
throughout the Younger Dryas period, more than the rain of rocks and debris,
contributed to the European and American megafauna extinctions and the de-
mise of the Clovis culture.
The location of the Hiawatha impact site is only 170 miles north of Cape
York and, as with the Hiawatha impactor, iron and nickel are the primary com-
ponents of the Cape York meteorite fragments. Slight differences in trace ele-
ment composition between the Cape York meteorite fragments and the (de-
duced) average composition of the Hiawatha impactor are easily explained by
the differentiation that would have existed in a 1.5-kilometer-diameter strong-
ly fractionated Duchesne (type IVA) asteroid. If, as seems likely, the Cape York
meteorite fragments came from the Hiawatha impactor, then the case for the
Hiawatha impactor as the cause of the Younger Dryas is strengthened even
more.
Paleoanthropologists believe the Hiawatha impactor delivered an impor-
tant benefit to the Inuit peoples. Long before they made contact with Euro-
peans, the Inuit would travel to the Cape York meteorites, chip off pieces of
pure, high-quality stainless steel, and use cold forging techniques to fashion
advanced tools.

Crucial Temperature Stabilization

Without the Hiawatha impactor event, or some as-yet-unimagined event with
identical results, no Younger Dryas cooling would have occurred. Instead,
the global mean temperature would have continued its rise to 2°C above the
current mean temperature, again leading to a rapid cooling that would have
plunged our planet into the typical ~90,000-year-long glacial period of the ice
age cycle.
The Younger Dryas dropped the global mean temperature so severely (by
13°C or 23°F) and for so long (1,200 years) that the temperature rise stopped
3°C (5°F) short of the peak preceding each of the four previous ice age cycles.
Thus, it preserved the polar ice cap, much of the ice over Antarctica and Green-
land, and the ice fields and glaciers over the world’s high mountain ranges and
throughout the Tibetan Plateau.
The halting of the normal temperature rise after the last glacial introduced
a unique stabilization of the global mean climate. This brief stabilization, the
first in human history, allowed for the launch and rapid advance of civiliza-
tion, technology, transportation, and trade. Humans could specialize and scale
up their agricultural endeavors. For example, farmers could plant large wheat
160 Weathering Climate Change

fields and count on a harvest bountiful enough to trade for other food prod-
ucts and manufactured goods. Likewise, herders could domesticate thousands
of goats and produce surplus milk, cheese, meat, and leather. They could then
trade these goods for other food products and manufactured goods.
For the first time, a relatively small number of people could produce all the
food needed for the entire population. Others could focus on nature study, the
arts, philosophy, engineering, and more. Doors opened for advances in science
and industry, and the growth of the human population into the millions and
then billions. Nations that lead the world in advancing technology and culture
do so because they can depend on a mere 1 or 2 percent of their population
to provide sufficient food for the other 98–99 percent. For thousands of years
the advance of technology played a crucial role in sustaining extreme climate
stability.

A Delicate Balance
As explained in chapter 7, the greater the tilt of Earth’s rotation axis, the greater
its warming effect on global mean temperature, and vice versa. The same is
true of variations in Earth’s orbital eccentricity. The last time the tilt of Earth’s
rotation axis reached its maximum value was 8,750 years ago.38 If left up to
normal processes alone, the declining tilt, and to a lesser degree the declining
orbital eccentricity, would have rapidly dropped the global mean temperature
by 10–11°C. Instead, from 8,750 years ago until 70 years ago, the global mean
temperature slowly and steadily declined by only 1.1°C. (As revealed in figure
5.2, there were short-duration, low-amplitude cooling and warming events.)
The warming effects of human activity and population growth have al-
most perfectly balanced out the natural cooling effects. The greatest warming
has come from the domestication, breeding, and population growth of farm
animals, especially cows, the domestication of rice, and the conversion of for-
ests into grassland and crop-growing land.
The breeding and population growth of farm animals has sent more car-
bon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. The domestication and breed-
ing of rice, and especially the practice of flooding rice fields to control weeds
and vermin, has released more methane into the atmosphere. The conversion
of forests into grassland and crop-growing land has reduced the amount of
carbon dioxide being removed from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.
For about 10,000 years, our industry and civilization have gradually in-
creased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, warming our planet almost as
much as the natural processes were cooling it. The outcome is a 9,500-year
 The Marvel of Climate Stability 161

period of optimal global mean temperature for human civilization during a

2.58-million-year epoch characterized by the most extreme climate instability
Earth has ever experienced! What’s more, if human civilization and techno-
logical development had proceeded at either a slightly slower or more rapid
rate, then civilization, technology, and population as we know them would not
have become possible.
What seems astounding to fathom is that human civilization and tech-
nological development proceeded at just-right rates throughout most of this
uniquely stable, optimally temperate era without humans having any aware-
ness of climate-altering cycles or any knowledge of how our activities influence
our global climate.
Furthermore, our current place in the ice age cycle happens to coincide
with the most spectacularly beautiful scenery our planet has ever possessed.
This beauty, some of which has been protected in national or regional parks
and preserves, provides critically important opportunities for restoration of
our souls and maintenance of our sanity amid the pressures our population
and technological civilization impose. The next chapter explores some of these
special gifts from Earth’s recent climate history.

Discussion Questions

1. What is the Younger Dryas cooling event, and how is the AMOC (At-
lantic meridional overturning circulation) disruption involved?

2. Describe the proposals for and against the Cape York meteorite as an
explanation for the Younger Dryas.

3. What did scientists discover 3,000 feet below an ice field in northwest-
ern Greenland, and why is it significant?

4. How did the Hiawatha impactor allow human civilization to launch

and advance?