Just about everybody with an interest in ancient civilisations has heard of the Younger Dryas. This was of course a period of time from roughly 12,800 to 11,600 years ago, when the climate returned to freezing, glacial conditions, temporarily reversing the gradual climatic warming that began around 16,000 years ago.
A recent study from 2020 shows that the Bolling-Allerod should not be distinguished from a D-O event
There is no scientific consensus regarding what caused the Younger Dryas, but there are a number of ideas, the most popular being the impact hypothesis and this has been forwarded to a mass audience by both Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson.
Although the Impact Hypothesis for the beginning of the Younger Dryas does have scientific backing by many scholars and experts, after studying the palaeoclimate using Greenland Ice Core data, I stumbled on a clear historic pattern, events known as Dansgaard-Oescher or D-O events.
The Bolling-Allerod and Younger Dryas are clearly one D-O event, the last D-O event of the Ice Age, a naturally occurring phenomenon due to ocean circulatio, which give a predictable climatic signature.
This to me brings in to doubt the impact hypothesis, or if the impact did happen, the scale of it and its effects on the global climate. I have come to the conclusion, based on historic data, that whether an impact happened or not, it was clearly not the driver of the Younger Dryas... The Younger Dryas was inevitable with or without an impact.
The information in this video is my personal opinion with my current level of knowledge. I welcome people to send me papers and information if I'm showing a lack of understanding or get anything wrong so please do get in touch.
- The main Greenland Ice Core graph used in the second half of this video was originated by Mario Buildreps.
- All images used in this video come from Google Images for educational purposes only.