Icebergs are seasonal phenomena in modern oceans, but are commonly associated with cooling events during climatic history, as seen on 103 to 109-yr time scales (Hambrey and Glasser, 2003). However, when considered in century or decadal terms the facts are paradoxically opposite. Glacial erratics scattered about the landscape in northern Europe when first noticed were often attributed to iceberg transport during Noah’s Flood — another misconception doomed to be discarded.
From the geological record it is observed that around 2.7 Myr ago there was a sudden increase in bipolar sea-ice and ice-rafting of sedimentary debris (“IRD”, or ice-rafted debris). This pattern fluctuated from glacial to interglacial stages, but at glacial extremes ice-rafting took the IRD, even large erratics, as far south in the Atlantic as 30° or even 25°S. In the Southern Ocean, ice transport reached the coasts of South Africa and Australia. As a biological proxy, various species of penguins, riding as...
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Fairbridge, R.W. (2005). Icebergs and Heinrich Events. In: Oliver, J.E. (eds) Encyclopedia of World Climatology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht . https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3266-8_106
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