Mini Ice Age Happened Rapidly

Just like the movie helmed by 2012 director, The Day After Tomorrow, our planet's climate is capable of rapid change, according to scientists from the University of Saskatchewan.

Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by the Younger Dryas mini ice age, or "Big Freeze"...and lasted around 1300 years.

Until now, it was thought that the mini ice age took a decade or so to take hold, on the evidence provided by Greenland ice cores.

...The group studied a mud core from an ancient lake, Lough Monreagh, in western Ireland. Using a scalpel they sliced off layers 0.5 to 1 millimetre thick, each representing up to three months of time. No other measurements from the period have approached this level of detail.

...They show that at the start of the Big Freeze, temperatures plummeted and lake productivity stopped within months, or a year at most. "It would be like taking Ireland today and moving it up to Svalbard" in the Arctic, says Patterson.

The drop in temperatures averaged 5 degrees globally, but as much as 15 degrees in Greenland. The date of the mini ice age, and the rapid onset, suggest a global cataclysm caused by a pole shift or asteroid/comet. Numerous books have been recently hypothesising either scenario, and this new evidence makes their ideas even more compelling.