Lake Agassiz
More fresh water than every lake on Earth today
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Lake Agassiz was a lake of meltwater that gathered in front of the ice sheet in what is now Manitoba, Ontario, Minnesota and North Dakota. Agassiz is the leading candidate explanation for both the Younger Dryas and the 8.2-kiloyear event: fresh water on the North Atlantic weakens the thermohaline circulation and cools Europe rapidly. The mechanism remains debated, not least because the outflow route is hard to establish. The lake bed left the Red River Valley, some of the flattest and most fertile farmland in the world, in Manitoba, North Dakota and Minnesota.
For children
In front of the melting ice sheet a lake gathered larger than all the world's lakes today combined. When the ice damming it gave way, vast quantities of fresh water poured into the sea in a short time — and that may have changed ocean currents and thrown the climate back into cold.
Sources
- Teller, Leverington & Mann, Quaternary Science Reviews 21 (2002)
- Broecker, Nature 372 (1994) — ferskvann og termohalin sirkulasjon
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