Ars Technica has a wild science story. Barnes Ice Cap on Baffin Island is the last surviving fragment of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which once buried most of Canada under two miles of ice. A new study in Science says the Laurentide hit its smallest size about 3,600 years ago, then started growing again about 2,000 years ago, which the team reads as the opening move of the next glaciation. That regrowth reversed around 1960 with modern warming.
How they can tell
Barnes is cold-based, meaning it’s frozen onto the bedrock instead of sliding and grinding away the record underneath. So the rock beneath it kept the story, says lead author Nicolás Young of Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
My take
God asked Job, “From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens?” (Job 38:29). We’re only now reading records He wrote into the rock thousands of years ago. Creation testifies, and I love watching science catch up to the wonder. It also reminds me we’re stewards of this earth, not owners.
Have a blessed day! And Happy Hacking!
