The Solar-Terrestrial Discharge Event: A Unified Model for the Younger Dryas Climate Anomaly

Current geological and anthropological models for the onset of the Younger Dryas (~10,950 BC) often fail to account for the simultaneity of the observed phenomena: the rapid melting of the North American ice sheet, the specific selectivity of the megafauna extinction, and the cross-cultural universality of specific "sky" mythologies. This paper proposes a unified hypothesis: a massive atmospheric plasma discharge (Z-Pinch) centered over the North American Ice Sheet. This "Plasma Bowl" model provides a thermodynamic mechanism for the flash-melting of glacial ice (solving the water displacement energy budget), a "step potential" explanation for the instant death of megafauna, and a physical basis for the "Squatter Man" and "Ant People" archetypes found in the historical record.