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This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.

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The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations but not necessarily

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the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.

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In 1977, the worst winter in a century struck the United States.

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Arctic cold gripped the Midwest for weeks on end.

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Great blizzards paralyzed cities of the northeast.

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One desperate night in Buffalo, eight people froze to death in marooned cars.

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Pat Bushnell was on the road that night.

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Traffic just absolutely stopped.

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I was afraid of being stuck in the car all night long with the cold and the wind running

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out of gas and then what?

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I think that if we had to go through a real bad winter just like we just went through,

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I think we'd have to think about moving someplace else.

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Move where?

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The brutal Buffalo winter might become common all over the United States.

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And experts believe the next ice age is on its way.

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According to recent evidence, it could come sooner than anyone had expected.

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Of the nine planets in our solar system, only Earth has conditions favorable to human life.

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Our existence depends on a delicate balance of climate.

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Despite our modern technology, we are vulnerable to the winds of weather and environment.

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Blanketing large areas of the Earth's surface, great storms are among nature's most frightening

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events.

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Uncontrollable tempests make us aware how fragile life on our planet really is.

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The comfortable cycle of spring sowing, summer growth and fall harvest is, in terms of long

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history, abnormal.

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Only in the last 10,000 years has Earth enjoyed continuing warmth.

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Because of this, our population has exploded to five billion people.

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For most of the last million years, however, whole continents were buried by ice.

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As recently as 18,000 years ago, a mile-fixed sheet stretched down from the Arctic Circle

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and covered what is now Seattle, Chicago and Boston.

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New York Harbor was choked with ice floes.

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Winters were cold and snowy down to the Gulf of Mexico.

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All that remains of the great glaciers that once covered North America are the ice caps

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of the Canadian Arctic.

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With the ice spreads over the continent again, it is here on Baffin Island in northern Canada

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that the mysterious process will begin.

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We look to this lonely outpost for warnings of a new ice age.

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Straddling the Arctic Circle, Baffin Island is a harshly beautiful wilderness.

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It is larger than California, but not one tree grows on the entire island.

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The only vegetation is the stunted plant life of the tundra.

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Most of the inhabitants are Inuit Eskimos, whose ancestors migrated west from Greenland

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a thousand years ago.

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Today, the island is poised on the brink of ice age conditions, a critical signal post

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for changes in the Earth's climate.

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According to geologists, the last major ice age began on Baffin Island 115,000 years ago.

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Perpetual snow spreads southward over the continents.

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The weight of many years of snow compressed into ice.

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The ice grew thicker until it covered Canada, the northern United States and Europe to a

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depth of two miles.

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For 100,000 years, the ice remained over large areas of the continents.

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Then it retreated to the Arctic, and for the last 10,000 years, we have flourished in a

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warm interglacial period.

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Our planet is crowded.

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What will we do when the fragile balance of climate shifts from today's abnormal warmth

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to the next ice age begins?

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One of the questions that I'm frequently asked is, when will this present warm interval end?

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And the best answer to that probably is that it has in fact already ended and it ended

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3,000 years ago right here on Baffin Island.

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Dr. Gifford Miller is a glaciologist from the University of Colorado.

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He's been studying the climate and glaciers of Baffin Island for the past six years.

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For the last 3,000 years, the summer temperatures have been getting colder and the amount of

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precipitation, rainfall and snowfall has decreased so that the conditions have been drier and

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colder.

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And at the same time, the glaciers have expanded.

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And the most recent expansion, which occurred between 300 years ago and the turn of the

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present century, the glaciers attained their most extensive positions that they had during

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the last 8,000 years.

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The summer of 1972 was one of the most severe summers on record and the ice never melted

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that summer.

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And when I returned to Broughton Island, one of the local settlements here, talking to

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the Inuit people, and they could only tell me that their fathers had told them of a time

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when the ice hadn't gone out.

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This once in a lifetime summer ice has surprised old time Arctic residents.

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Ernie Sieber is superintendent of Baffin Island National Park and has lived in the Arctic

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for over 20 years.

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Ernie Sieber, In 1973, we had ice all over the east coast.

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The fjords, some of the ice in the fjords, they didn't even leave.

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And almost every year since, we had the ice moving in after the fjords.

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So it looks like the climate has changed.

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It looks like it turned colder.

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Since concern for our weather has increased, the park wardens now take daily records of

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temperatures, wind and solar radiation.

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Weather data from stations all over the Arctic is collected and fed into central computers.

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Balloons are launched every day to monitor the winds and temperatures at high altitudes.

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The data shows that average temperatures in the Arctic have fallen dramatically over

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the last 30 years.

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In most locations, the drop has been about 2 degrees centigrade.

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At that rate, the descent to ice age temperatures could take less than 200 years.

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It is not only the lonely Arctic that has cooled, the whole northern hemisphere is growing

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steadily colder.

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There is little doubt that someday the ice will return.

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At least eight times in the past million years, it has advanced and retreated with clockwork

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regularity.

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If we are unprepared for the next advance, the result could be hunger and death on a scale

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unprecedented in all of history.

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What scientists are telling us now is that the threat of an ice age is not as remote

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as they once thought.

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In the lifetime of our grandchildren, Arctic cold and perpetual snow could turn most of

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the inhabitable portions of our planet into a polar desert.

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In Greenland, the snows of centuries have piled up on the largest ice cap in the northern

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hemisphere.

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Scientists have recently discovered evidence of a climatic catastrophe.

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Going down over 1400 meters, geologists have collected precious samples of ancient ice.

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Some of it fell as snow over 100,000 years ago.

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The ice has shipped south, where it is kept frozen at minus 35 degrees and carefully vited

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up for study.

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By separating out the two forms of oxygen in the ice, scientists have been able to chart

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the temperatures when it fell as snow.

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Near the bottom of the ice cap, they found traces of widespread freezing occurring with

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dramatic suddenness.

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Dr. Chester Langway is chairman of the geology department at the State University of New

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York, Buffalo.

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We have evidence from the ice core studies that approximately 89,000 years ago, the global

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climate changed from one of greater warmth than today into one of glacial severity.

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It is possible that a tremendous volcanic event occurred shielding the sun, cooling the earth's

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temperatures and thereby providing the explanation of the advancing glaciers.

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The significance of this catastrophic event is that within a hundred year period of time

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that the glaciers could have re-advanced over the surface of the earth.

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It is possible that we may enter into such a cold climate almost instantaneously in the

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very near future.

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The climate does suddenly cool.

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Will we survive the change?

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18,000 years ago, Manhattan Island was buried under a mile of ice.

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With the Hudson River flows today, there was a huge glacier.

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Pack ice filled the ocean off Long Island.

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We're only beginning to understand the cyclic history of the ice, but evidence is mounting

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that another ice age is due.

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The most persuasive data comes from beneath the sea.

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The research ship Vima sails the world's oceans, taking samples of sediments deposited

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long ago.

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A crew of scientists rig a long cylinder and drop it vertically to the ocean floor.

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The cylinder dredges up mud from the seabed in the form of long cores.

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The types of tiny fossils found at different levels in the core shows the sea temperatures

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of the past.

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Geologists have collected enough sea cores to form a detailed history of climate during

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the last million years.

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The cores are analyzed at the Lamont-Dahirty Geological Laboratory of Columbia University.

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Dr. James Hayes leads the research.

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The climatic record in these deep sea cores tells us that there have been eight ice ages

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in the last 700,000 years.

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It also tells us when they have occurred.

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This provides us with a test of various theories of the ice ages.

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We now have a theory that tells us that changes in the shape of the Earth's orbit act as

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a pacemaker for the ice age succession.

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Since this theory can precisely predict when ice ages occurred in the past, which can be

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tested against these deep sea cores, it also can predict when ice ages will occur in the

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future.

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In this theory, we can say with confidence that we are currently heading toward another

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ice age.

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In the winter of 1976-77, one storm after another buried the northeast under record amounts

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of snow.

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Months of brutal cold made much of the nation seem like the Arctic.

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In Chicago, temperatures hovered at 19 degrees below zero, Dayton, 21 degrees below zero,

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Cincinnati, 25 degrees below zero.

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Of all the hard-hit places, Buffalo, New York provides the best lesson.

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That unfortunate city had 44 consecutive days of snow.

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The first sudden blizzard paralyzed traffic.

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Thousands were forced to abandon their cars and seek refuge from the storm.

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Some who didn't were found frozen.

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As the storms continued, the resources of government were strained.

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Snow plows had to be flown in by the Air Force.

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Even the National Guard couldn't keep up with the unrelenting snow.

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Just how long can a modern city hold out when whole regions are cut off from food and fuel?

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When the weather turns on us again, how thin is the margin between life and death?

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When the snowfall finally stopped, downtown Buffalo lay quiet and deserted.

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Businesses remain closed for weeks.

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The airport was unusable.

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There was no way to reach or leave the city.

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The mail could not go through.

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Supplies of food and drugs ran perilously low.

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The ambulances could not reach the sick.

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For the old and infirm, it was a time of pain and misery.

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Suppliers of natural gas had to put emergency plans into effect, cutting off thousands of users.

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Electrical utilities ordered temporary blackouts.

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Fire engines froze in the Sub-Zero cold.

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In the suburbs, strong winds piled the snow in drifts as high as 30 feet.

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Many people had to enter their homes through second-story windows.

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No matter how much snow was cleared, fresh storms brought in more.

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Snowmobiles, the only viable form of transportation, were pressed into emergency service.

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That bushnell remembers how the buffalo storm began.

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It was terrible.

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It was the worst winter that we have ever, ever had around here.

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When I left work, knowing it was bad, but still thinking I could get home, gone maybe

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three miles from work and realized that the roads were closed at that point, you couldn't

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walk.

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The wind coming right off the lake at that point, it's right in downtown Buffalo, was

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so brutal that you just couldn't walk.

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So I sat for a while, just sat and waited in the car, and finally realized that it was

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hopeless.

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The thought of freezing to death, that's kind of frightened me.

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My worst fear at that point was the children.

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I was worried sick about them.

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They were in the house alone.

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That was the biggest worry.

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To go through that every year just wouldn't be worth the fight.

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And it's a fight.

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It's a real fight.

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Half a million workers in the United States were laid off because of fuel shortages.

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Hundreds died of illness made worse by the cold.

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Had the storms continued much longer, millions would have been in jeopardy for lack of food

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and fuel.

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The experience of 1977 leads us to imagine the disaster the future might bring.

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In the descent to an ice age, one severe winter would follow another.

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Eventually, the snows of Buffalo would never melt.

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Increased demand for heating fuel would trigger an energy crisis beyond anything we can imagine.

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Winters in Dallas and Atlanta would grow cold and icy.

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Snows would blanket Southern California and Northern Florida.

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The people of Mississippi and Alabama would have to contend with old-fashioned New England winters.

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Icy winds would sweep the Kansas wheat fields.

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Colorado's summer grazing lands would resemble the Arctic tundra.

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In California, glaciers would advance from the Sierra Nevada toward the fertile San Joaquin Valley.

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Food production would plummet.

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Prices would soar out of sight.

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Every winter, the line of year-round snow would move further and further south.

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If the catastrophic event of 89,000 years ago repeats itself, the ice could return within a single lifetime.

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If an ice age is coming, what can we do to stop it?

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Nuclear energy might be used to loosen polar ice caps.

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Sea ice could be melted by covering it with black soot to increase the absorption of sunlight.

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Dr. Steven Schneider is a climatologist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

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Can we do these things?

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Yes, but will they make things better?

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I'm not sure.

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We can't predict with any certainty what's happening to our own climatic future.

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How can we come along and intervene then in that ignorance?

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You could melt the ice caps.

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What would that do to the coastal cities?

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The cure could be worse than disease.

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Would that be better or worse than the risk of an ice age?

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If the polar ice melted completely, sea level would rise 180 feet.

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New Orleans, San Francisco and New York would be submerged.

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Clearly, one of the future's great problems will be to survive the next ice age.

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Earth, water, air and ice comprise a delicate system in which everything is connected to everything else.

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It's the interaction between people and climate that worry me the most.

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Because with everyone jammed in in countries, locked in in national boundaries,

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a change in climate means a redistribution of where the rain is, where the growing seasons are.

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My worst fear is that the climate could induce a change in some country that would be devastating to their local survivability,

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and that would lead them to desperate acts that can drag everybody else down.

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In the past, weather disasters have fostered a spirit of mutual concern.

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When drastic changes in our climate occur, hopefully the same acts of courage and cooperation will prevail.

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Tonight on the History Channel.

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Okay, a ship vanishes into thin air and then reappears somewhere else.

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You've got to be kidding me, right?

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Well, that's exactly what some say happened in the fall of 1943.

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The true story of the Philadelphia experiment.

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Unincredible but true.

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Tonight at 8 on the History Channel.

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.