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North Atlantic played pivotal role in last great climate tipping point, research shows
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_504264_en.html[font face=Serif][font size=5]North Atlantic played pivotal role in last great climate tipping point, research shows[/font]
[font size=4]The North Atlantic Ocean played a key role in the last great tipping point in Earth’s climate system, pioneering new research has shown.[/font]
[font size=3]An international research team has discovered ground-breaking new reasons why large continental ice-sheets first grew in North America and Scandinavia during the late Pliocene Epoch era, 2.7 millions of years ago.
…
The researchers measured the composition of isotopes of the chemical element neodymium that can be found in fish teeth preserved in a North Atlantic marine core to track the origin of deep waters bathing the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean during this climate transition.
For the past 2.7 million years Earth’s climate has switched more than 50 times between a cold glacial state and warm interglacial state much like today. Contrary to previous assertions, they found that the first of these glacial events in the northern hemisphere were associated with major expansions of carbon-rich southern-sourced deep waters into the northwestern Atlantic abyss, over one million years earlier than previously thought.
The team also found that three of the largest glacial cycles between 2.5 and 2.7 million years ago appear to be associated with southern-sourced water incursions into the deep Atlantic that were as significant as those documented for the last glacial maximum.
…
Date: 4 April 2016[/font][/font]
[font size=4]The North Atlantic Ocean played a key role in the last great tipping point in Earth’s climate system, pioneering new research has shown.[/font]
[font size=3]An international research team has discovered ground-breaking new reasons why large continental ice-sheets first grew in North America and Scandinavia during the late Pliocene Epoch era, 2.7 millions of years ago.
…
The researchers measured the composition of isotopes of the chemical element neodymium that can be found in fish teeth preserved in a North Atlantic marine core to track the origin of deep waters bathing the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean during this climate transition.
For the past 2.7 million years Earth’s climate has switched more than 50 times between a cold glacial state and warm interglacial state much like today. Contrary to previous assertions, they found that the first of these glacial events in the northern hemisphere were associated with major expansions of carbon-rich southern-sourced deep waters into the northwestern Atlantic abyss, over one million years earlier than previously thought.
The team also found that three of the largest glacial cycles between 2.5 and 2.7 million years ago appear to be associated with southern-sourced water incursions into the deep Atlantic that were as significant as those documented for the last glacial maximum.
…
Date: 4 April 2016[/font][/font]
