Back to business! National Geographic has a nice article on the hail of fireballs story which I mentioned briefly a few days ago:
The timing of the impact, according to Kennett, coincides with an era of climate cooling known as the Younger Dryas.
“We are suggesting for the first time that this very abrupt and large cooling that occurred at 12.9 thousand years ago … was triggered by the extraterrestrial impact,” he said.
The impact would have destabilized an ice sheet over North America, which allowed large bodies of fresh water to drain into the ocean and alter circulation patterns, he explained. The change in currents included a temporary halt to one that brings warm, tropical waters to the North Atlantic.