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Dissecting Paleoclimate Change
http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/016158/dissecting-paleoclimate-change[font face=Serif][font size=5]Dissecting Paleoclimate Change[/font]
[font size=4]Using a core sample from the Santa Barbara Basin, UCSB researchers decipher the history of paleoclimate change with surprising results[/font]
By Julie Cohen
Wednesday, December 2, 2015 - 11:00
Santa Barbara, CA
[font size=3]Global climate change isn’t new — the phenomenon has been around for millions of years. But now, a core from the ocean floor in the Santa Barbara Basin provides a remarkable ultra-high-resolution record of Earth’s paleoclimate history during a brief, dynamic time hundreds of thousands of years ago.
New research from UC Santa Barbara geologist James Kennett and colleagues examines a shift from a glacial to an interglacial climate that began about 630,000 years ago. Their research demonstrates that, although this transition developed over seven centuries, the initial shift required only 50 years. Called a deglacial episode because of its association with the melting of large Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, this interval illustrates the extreme sensitivity to change of the Earth’s climate system. The findings appear in the journal Paleoceanography.
“One of the most astonishing things about our results is the abruptness of the warming in sea surface temperatures,” explained co-author Kennett, a professor emeritus in UCSB’s Department of Earth Science. “Of the 13 degree Fahrenheit total, a shift of 7 to 9 degrees occurred almost immediately right at the beginning.”
For more than a million years, the Earth’s climate has oscillated from glacial (ice age) to interglacial (warm) — the latter representing modern conditions. According to Kennett, the Santa Barbara Basin holds the most pristine marine record of these fluctuations, thanks in large part to the area’s unique location along the California margin. The basin is the confluence of the cool California current from the subpolar region and the warm countercurrent from the tropics.
…[/font][/font]
[font size=4]Using a core sample from the Santa Barbara Basin, UCSB researchers decipher the history of paleoclimate change with surprising results[/font]
By Julie Cohen
Wednesday, December 2, 2015 - 11:00
Santa Barbara, CA
[font size=3]Global climate change isn’t new — the phenomenon has been around for millions of years. But now, a core from the ocean floor in the Santa Barbara Basin provides a remarkable ultra-high-resolution record of Earth’s paleoclimate history during a brief, dynamic time hundreds of thousands of years ago.
New research from UC Santa Barbara geologist James Kennett and colleagues examines a shift from a glacial to an interglacial climate that began about 630,000 years ago. Their research demonstrates that, although this transition developed over seven centuries, the initial shift required only 50 years. Called a deglacial episode because of its association with the melting of large Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, this interval illustrates the extreme sensitivity to change of the Earth’s climate system. The findings appear in the journal Paleoceanography.
“One of the most astonishing things about our results is the abruptness of the warming in sea surface temperatures,” explained co-author Kennett, a professor emeritus in UCSB’s Department of Earth Science. “Of the 13 degree Fahrenheit total, a shift of 7 to 9 degrees occurred almost immediately right at the beginning.”
For more than a million years, the Earth’s climate has oscillated from glacial (ice age) to interglacial (warm) — the latter representing modern conditions. According to Kennett, the Santa Barbara Basin holds the most pristine marine record of these fluctuations, thanks in large part to the area’s unique location along the California margin. The basin is the confluence of the cool California current from the subpolar region and the warm countercurrent from the tropics.
…[/font][/font]