Evidence for a Global Warming at the Termination I Boundary and Its Possible Cosmic Dust Cause

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Abstract

A comparison of northern and southern hemispheric paleotemperature profiles suggests that the Bölling-Alleröd Interstadial, Younger Dryas stadial, and subsequent Preboreal warming which occurred at the end of the last ice age were characterized by temperatures that changed synchronously in various parts of the world, implying that these climatic oscillations were produced by significant changes in the Earth’s energy balance. These globally coordinated oscillations are not easily explained by ocean current mechanisms such as bistable flipping of ocean deep-water production or regional temperature changes involving the NW/SE migration of the North Atlantic polar front. They also are not accounted for by Earth orbital changes in seasonality or by increases in atmospheric CO2 or CH4. On the other hand, evidence of an elevated cosmic ray flux and of a major interstellar dust incursion around 15,800 years B.P. suggest that a cosmic ray wind driven incursion of interstellar dust and gas may have played a key role through its activation of the Sun and alteration of light transmission through the interplanetary medium.

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