h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Younger Dryas - the Ice Age's Last Big Blast - A743276
Author: Woodpigeon - U30129

So where did all those Woolly Mammoths disappear to anyway? This is an entry on a deep freeze event in Europe just after the Ice Age. Let me know what you think!

Woodpigeon

I can't comment on the technical content, Woodpigeon, but the structure holds well together for me!

This looks good. Might I suggest "you'd better get..." rather than "you better get..."?

Was the onset of the Younger Dryas caused by global warming? Was it global warming which had nothing to do with humankind? Was the Younger Dryas felt in continents other than Europe? I think that these questions should be answered in the entry.

Ok, I have made a few changes to the article - I have given a bit more information on the probable cause, and I note that North America suffered the effect of this as well.

Thanks a lot,

Woodpigeon

If the younger dryas lasted for 1300 years, why do you say that the climate flipped to cold and then 600 years later flipped to warm again?

Confusion with my research sources, I'm afraid. I think that, because it is so long ago, there appears to be difficulties pinpointing the event and its duration, exactly. The Greenland Ice Core analysis suggests a 1300 year event, starting 12,800 years ago, ending 11,500 years ago. Other analyses suggest a period between 11,000 and 10,000 years ago. I am going to go with the Greenland measurements unless I get more information to reconcile this apparent discrepancy. I have changed the duration to 1300 years.

Woodpigeon

A few points:

1. It is still not clear whether the Younger Dryas cold conditions were experienced in North America.

2. You seem to be suggesting that farming as a world practice originated in Northern Europe as a response to the Younger Dryas. The normal view is that farming originated around that time but in what is now known as Iraq. Did the effects of the Younger Dryas extend as far south as there?

3. Some style points:

The sentence: "Massive glaciers sweep down ... sweeping with them ..."
The use of "sweep" twice in this sentence is bad. Change the second one to "taking".

The second paragraph starts by mentioning Northern Europe and North America. They are mentioned again in the third or fourth sentence of the same paragraph. You could probably leave them out the second time.

Instead of saying 10 degrees, you should probably say 10°C because some people use Fahrenheit. Alt+0176 gives the degrees symbol.

Thanks Gnomon. Some more changes made.

The YD did affect the greater Atlantic region, including North America. It also had the effect of cooling down the Middle Eastern regions significantly. It would be very hard to prove a direct link between the YD and farming, but a major climatic change is certainly considered as a possibility, and there have been some papers written about this linkage.

I quite like this entry. I find it interesting, seemingly well researched, and well written. I have a few comments to make though.

I think that footnote 4 could probably be incorporated into footnote 2, as both seem to concern the naming of the period.

You talk about 1,300 years being a brief period. Perhaps you could put this in context of the sort of period geologists and the like have to deal with, where I gather they look at trends over many millions of years.

Apart from those points, I think this is nice entry, and I would be happy to see this go into the edited guide.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions, Silverfish. I have made some updates to the article - combining the footnotes and adding a new footnote on geological timescales.

I had a look at the changes, and they look good to me .

I'm surprised to see that this hasn't been picked yet. Perhaps it needs some colourful headings like this to make it look really cool!

I didn't think it would work for this article, but to my surprise it is a bit more readable. Thanks Gnomon .

Woodpigeon

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Well done. Obviously those titles did the trick!

Pardon the pun...

Thanks everyone!

Woodpigeon

Well done Woodpigeon.

I don't think there were titles when this this piece was recommended.

Great entry!

I don't think there were titles when this this piece was recommended.

Great entry!