Paleoclimate in Minnesota

I continue to prepare for my comments on our electric utility's plans to go to zero-carbon-emissions.

Since the whole point of their effort is to stop climate change, I thought I'd take a quick look at Minnesota's historic climate...all of it.

In the Permian Era, Minnesota was at the bottom of an ocean. At various later times, much of it was covered by smaller seas. Even today, a lot of it is covered by water; it's the "Land of 10,000 lakes" after all, although actually there are even more of them than that.

As recently as the Cretaceous Period, Minnesota's climate was tropical. During the Ice Age in the Pleistocene, Minnesota was under glaciers. One of these is much more habitable than the other.