This theory has been criticized adversely by various authorities, despite the geologic, oceanographic, and meteorological evidence that Ewing and Donn have brought to bear upon each step of their reasoning. Their theory is particularly attractive to the archaeologist; it requires an ice-free Arctic coast when the land-bridge at Bering Strait would have been available to early man. Climatic conditions at that time would have been severe along the land-bridge and coastline, but not impossible for the survival of early man.[12]
Another explanation is a general decrease in solar energy; Zeuner holds this in reserve for lack of evidence. But some present-day geologists seize on the possibility that the heat of the sun may have changed from time to time, and use the theory in a curious, almost paradoxical way. The author of this hypothesis, Sir George C. Simpson, believes that the great masses of ice resulted from an initial _increase_ instead of a decrease in temperature.[13] As the weather grew slightly warmer, cloudiness and rain and snow increased, the snow-line fell, and glaciation resulted. As the weather grew still warmer, the ice melted. (Simpson demonstrated the basic principle of this through an ingenious laboratory experiment.) His glacial theory, which is explained in more detail on the opposite page, postulates two increases in solar energy, and draws from them a meteorological pattern that provides the four glacial and three interglacial periods. The first and last interglacials would be warm and wet, the second cold and dry. Zeuner objects to this theory on the ground that the last interglacial—which, according to Simpson, should have been warm and wet—was mainly cool and dry.[14] But, while it may have been cool and dry in the German area which Zeuner has most closely studied, other areas probably had other climates. Simpson’s hypothesis would account for the heavy rains, or pluvial periods, of Nilotic Africa, which may link up with the glaciations of Europe; but he provides only two pluvials, and there are evidences of three or more in Africa.
_A somewhat modified graph of Simpson’s theory of the cause of the Great Ice Age. The following summary by Carl Sauer includes quotations from Simpson: [First] “Increased solar radiation received by the earth leads to increase in the general circulation of the atmosphere, which forms a great cloud blanket and causes increased precipitation in appropriate areas. In particular, in high latitudes and altitudes there is increased snowfall or glaciers. [Second] ‘As the radiation increases still further, the ice melts away and we have overcast skies and much precipitation but no ice accumulation.’ [Third] ‘When the solar radiation decreases, conditions are reversed and the whole sequence is gone through in reverse order.’” (After Simpson, 1938; quotation from Sauer, 1944.)_]