A New Ice Age is in the Tea Leaves

The Ice Age affected many parts of the Mid West. It was living in Fargo for four decades that its reality sunk into my head. People who live there learn the flat characteristics of the land in that region were caused by a giant glacier and a lake that formed when the glacier melted. The land around Fargo and up to Winnipeg has another odd characteristic that it slopes to the north while the rest of the land slops to the south. This slope to the north was caused by the tremendous weight of the high pile of ice. The ice was so deep and contained so much of the earth's water the oceans elsewhere in the world were as much as 300 feet lower.

Humans apparently lived in the area before the glacier and moved east. The glacier is dated about 20,000 years ago and maybe melted away about 10,000 years ago.

I always wondered how it happened the glacier formed back then and is it possible it could return? This hurricane season we are learning the climate is changing and, while no one knows the future for certain, it looks like changes we have not experienced for thousands of years is coming. Scientists say most of the earth's history has been one of dramatic and violent weather. The recent hundreds of years have been unusual in that the weather has been quiet. 

This afternoon I read in the New Yorker about the melting of the Greenland Cap. The scientists in Greenland shake their heads at the indifference of the world's public to what they are watching. The melting will add 20 some feet to oceans. Water going into the ocean is altering the movement of water which, in turn, changes the weather. Scientists are convinced some areas of the globe that now produce food will become too hot and dry for agriculture. Northern Europe will become too cold for agriculture. The entire country of Bangladesh may be under water and its millions of people moved somewhere else. 

Lots of disruptions with people moving to other countries is ahead. Perhaps food itself will be scarce.