New insights into the dynamics of past climate change

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/uoc-nii101415.php

Public Release: 14-Oct-2015
New insights into the dynamics of past climate change
University of Cambridge

A new study of the relationship between ocean currents and climate change has found that they are tightly linked, and that changes in the polar regions can affect the ocean and climate on the opposite side of the world within one to two hundred years, far quicker than previously thought.

The study, by an international team of scientists led by the University of Cambridge, examined how changes in ocean currents in the Atlantic Ocean were related to climate conditions in the northern hemisphere during the last ice age, by examining data from ice cores and fossilised plankton shells. It found that variations in ocean currents and abrupt climate events in the North Atlantic region were tightly linked in the past, and that changes in the polar regions affected the ocean circulation and climate on the opposite side of the world.

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