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Solving corrosive ocean mystery reveals future climate
http://news.psu.edu/story/357102/2015/05/11/solving-corrosive-ocean-mystery-reveals-future-climate[font face=Serif][font size=5]Solving corrosive ocean mystery reveals future climate[/font]
May 11, 2015
[font size=3]UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Around 55 million years ago, an abrupt global warming event triggered a highly corrosive deep-water current through the North Atlantic Ocean. The current's origin puzzled scientists for a decade, but an international team of researchers has now discovered how it formed and the findings may have implications for the carbon dioxide emission sensitivity of today's climate.
The researchers explored the acidification of the ocean that occurred during a period known as the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when the Earth warmed 9 degree Fahrenheit in response to a rapid rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and subsequently one of the largest-ever mass extinctions occurred in the deep ocean. They report their findings in today's (May 11) issue of Nature Geoscience.
This period closely resembles the scenario of global warming today.
“There has been a longstanding mystery about why ocean acidification caused by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide during the PETM was so much worse in the Atlantic compared to the rest of the world’s oceans,” said lead author Kaitlin Alexander, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales, Australia. “Our research suggests the shape of the ocean basins and changes to ocean currents played a key role in this difference. Understanding how this event occurred may help other researchers to better estimate the sensitivity of our climate to increasing carbon dioxide.”
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May 11, 2015
[font size=3]UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Around 55 million years ago, an abrupt global warming event triggered a highly corrosive deep-water current through the North Atlantic Ocean. The current's origin puzzled scientists for a decade, but an international team of researchers has now discovered how it formed and the findings may have implications for the carbon dioxide emission sensitivity of today's climate.
The researchers explored the acidification of the ocean that occurred during a period known as the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when the Earth warmed 9 degree Fahrenheit in response to a rapid rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and subsequently one of the largest-ever mass extinctions occurred in the deep ocean. They report their findings in today's (May 11) issue of Nature Geoscience.
This period closely resembles the scenario of global warming today.
“There has been a longstanding mystery about why ocean acidification caused by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide during the PETM was so much worse in the Atlantic compared to the rest of the world’s oceans,” said lead author Kaitlin Alexander, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales, Australia. “Our research suggests the shape of the ocean basins and changes to ocean currents played a key role in this difference. Understanding how this event occurred may help other researchers to better estimate the sensitivity of our climate to increasing carbon dioxide.”
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