Lake Agassiz: questions about its origin and disappearance
By Andy Soos
Lake Agassiz was an immense glacial lake located in the centre of North America (Manitoba mostly).
Fed by glacial runoff at the end of the last glacial period, its area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined, and it held more water than contained by all lakes in the world today.
At its largest, Glacial Lake Agassiz, as it is known, covered most of the Canadian province of Manitoba, plus a good part of western Ontario. A southern arm straddled the Minnesota-North Dakota border.
University of Cincinnati Professor of Geology Thomas Lowell will present a paper about the lake to the Geological Society of America annual meeting in Minneapolis. Lowell’s paper is one of 14 to be presented Oct. 10 in a session titled: Glacial Lake Agassiz — Its History and Influence on North America and on Global Systems: In Honor of James T. Teller.
Although Lake Agassiz is gone, questions about its origin and disappearance remain. Answers to those questions may provide clues to our future climate. One question involves Lake Agassiz’ role in a thousand-year cold snap known as the Younger Dryas.
During the last Ice Age, northern North America was covered by a glacier, which alternately advanced and deteriorated with variations in the climate.
This continental ice sheet formed during the period now known as the Wisconsin glaciation, and covered much of central North America between 30,000 and 10,000 years ago. As the ice sheet disintegrated, it created at its front an immense proglacial lake, formed from its meltwaters.
Around 13,000 years BP the lake came to cover much of Manitoba, western Ontario, northern Minnesota, eastern North Dakota, and Saskatchewan. At its greatest extent, it may have covered as much as 440,000 square kilometers, larger than any currently existing lake in the world.
The last major shift in drainage occurred about 8,400 years ago. The melting of remaining Hudson Bay ice caused lake Agassiz to drain nearly completely. This final drainage of Lake Agassiz contributed an estimated 1 to 3 meters to total post-glacial global sea level rise.
Lake Agassiz’ major drainage reorganization events were of such magnitudes that they had significant impact on climate, sea level and possibly early human civilization. Major freshwater release into the Arctic Ocean is considered to disrupt oceanic circulation and cause temporary cooling. The draining at 13,000 may be the cause of the Younger Dryas stadial.
As the last ice age ended, thousands of years of warming temperatures were interrupted by an abrupt shift to cold. Tundra conditions expanded southward, to cover the land exposed as the forests retreated. This colder climate is marked in the fossil record by a flowering plant known as Dryas, which gives the period its name.
“My work focuses on abrupt or rapid climate change,” Lowell said. “The Younger Dryas offers an opportunity to study such change. The climate then went from warming to cooling very rapidly, in less than 30 years or so.”
Scientists noted that the Younger Dryas cold spell seemed to coincide with lower water levels in Lake Agassiz. Had the lake drained? And, if so, had the fresh water of the lake caused this climate change by disrupting ocean currents? This is the view of many scientists, Lowell said.
Lowell investigated a long-standing mystery involving Lake Agassiz — a significant drop in water level known as the Moorhead Low. It has long been believed that the Moorehead Low when water drained from Lake Agassiz through a new drainage pathway. Could this drainage have flowed through the St. Lawrence Seaway into the North Atlantic Ocean?
“The most common hypothesis for catastrophic lowering is a change in drainage pathways,” Lowell said.
The problem is, better dating of lake levels and associated organic materials do not support a rapid outflow at the right time.
“An alternative explanation is needed,” he said.
Lowell’s research shows that, although water levels did drop, the surface area of the lake increased more than seven-fold at the same time. His research suggests that the lower water levels were caused by increased evaporation, not outflow.
While the melting glacier produced a lot of water, Lowell notes that the Moorhead Low was roughly contemporaneous with the Younger Dryas cold interval, when the atmosphere was drier and there was increased solar radiation.
“The dry air would reduce rainfall and enhance evaporation,” Lowell said. “The cold would reduce meltwater production, and shortwave radiation would enhance evaporation when the lake was not frozen and sublimation when the lake was ice-covered.”
Further research will attempt a clearer picture of this ancient episode, but researchers will have to incorporate various factors including humidity, yearly duration of lake ice, annual temperature, and a better understanding of how and where meltwater flowed from the receding glaciers.
- For further information: http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=14355
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