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Experts say climate change may spawn 'giant flying boulders'

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Cheryl Santa Maria
Digital Reporter

Tuesday, December 1, 2015, 6:34 PM - According to experts, there will be many casualties of climate change. Past studies indicate we stand to lose chocolate and coffee, while major cities could be put at risk. Other studies point to harsher winters, longer summers and more intense storms.

Now, a pair of world-renowned scientists are warning of another risk: Giant flying boulders.

Climatologist James Hansen and geologist Paul Hearty recently paid a visit to Eleuthera, Bahamas, to an area where two strange boulders sit.

The 1000 tonne rocks, dubbed the 'cow and the bull', are situated near the edge of a steep 18-metre cliff. Tests show they're much older than the rocks beneath them, indicating they came from somewhere else. Hanson and Hearty believe the bloulders were flung onto the cliff by large waves brought about by climate change 100,000 years ago, the Washington Post reports.

The scientists say the changes that took place then are similar to the patterns happening now. They believe that powerful storms induced by climate change could cause the rocks to become airborne once more.

Their theory has drawn some criticisms from the scientific community.

Another extensive study conducted on the cow and the bull, for example, concludes the boulders are the last remaining remnants of towers.

"We looked at those criticisms,” Hansen tells The Washington Post.

“It became all the clearer that the interpretation that we’re making is right, and that the boulders are wave-deposited, and highly likely that they’re deposited by the same storms that are causing the other obvious features in the Bahamas.”

WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE?

When scientists refer to 'climate change', they're talking about a change in climatic norms.

In other words, warm climates could get even warmer and drier, or they could get colder and wetter.

While this occurs naturally, scientists say humans play a role as well.

Here's an explanation from The Weather Network's Chris St. Clair.

Source: The Washington Post

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