Ocean Currents Shifting In Warming Climate, World Will Be Like Ancient Period 3 Million Years Ago Say German Scientists

During this warm period, unusually warm surface conditions existed in the North Atlantic, which has often been simply explained by the intensification of the existing pattern of ocean circulation. However, reproducing these changes with climate models has eluded researchers for more than a decade—suggesting either that there was something wrong with the long-standing explanation or with the models used to predict the behavior of warmer oceans.

An alternative pattern of warm ocean circulation

A team of Bergen scientists reevaluated the existing observations and used the Norwegian Earth System model (NorESM) to carry out simulations to better understand ocean circulation during the warm mid-Pliocene.

They illustrated that the largest changes occurred in the deep Southern Ocean, but not in the North Atlantic, indicating that the existing explanation was not adequate. They found that the data and simulations pointed toward an altogether different pattern of ocean circulation, with Antarctic waters playing a stronger role due to faster renewal of the deeper water masses in the Southern Ocean during the mid-Pliocene. This alternative explanation provided a solution to the long standing discrepancy between reconstructions of ocean circulation at the time and available model simulations.

North Atlantic warming

The team also addressed the unusual warmth in the North Atlantic during the warm mid-Pliocene. The observed high latitude warmth was shown not to require the intensification of todays ocean circulation and the transport of ocean heat to the north, rather it was a direct response to changes in insolation and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the time. The study highlights just how differently ocean circulation was when the planet was warmer and carbon dioxide levels were high.

The study by Zhongshi Zhang, Kerim Nisancioglu and Ulysses Ninnemann from the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Bergen was published on Tuesday February 19th in Nature Communications.

More stories:

HAARP’s Glowing Artificial Plasma Clouds Revealed In New Navy Photos 

Lost Continent Found Beneath Pacific Ocean Say Scientists

Did Vicans Invent Writing Before The Sumerians And Egyptians? Cryptographer Translates Tărtăria Tabets 

Ocean Currents Shifting In Warming Climate, World Will Be Like Ancient Period 3 Million Years Ago Say German Scientists

Bigfoot Photo Sets Off Search In Houston Area

The God Debate – Terry Eagleton 

Replicants Soon A Reality? New Society Emerging With Humanoid Robots Says EU Robotics Expert

9 Gross Things Parents Do But Don’t Always Know It

Sea May Hold Cancer Cure

Flu Cure Found! Pandemic Threat Ended: New Breakthrough Drug Stops Virus Spread Dead In Its Tracks, Works On Lethal Drug Resistant Strains

Top Ten Asteroid Factoids

Doomsday Asteroid Damage Zone Found: 20 Kilometer Asteroid Caused 30,000 Square Kilometers Devastation

Radically New Way Of Harvesting Energy From The Sun

Alfven Waves Bombard Earth

Hubble Sees A Glowing Jet From A Young Star

Exploding Meteors, Asteroids, And Near Earth Objects

Early Moon Was Wet And The Water Was Not Lost  

11 Fascinating Live Webcams, Spy On The World  

Pentagon Grounds All F-35 Aircraft

World Premiere Of Muscle And Nerve-Controlled Arm Prosthesis

Volcanoes Put 500 Million People At Risk; New Insights Into Deep Magmatic Processes

Bees And Flowers Have Electric Relationship, They Communicate Using Electrical Fields, Researchers Discover

15 Popular Internet Scams

American Fukushima! Six Underground Radioactive Waste Tanks Leaking at Hanford Nuclear Reservation

Giants UFOs Return: Angelic UFO To Sun And Cigar UFO To Mexican Volcano, Cigar UFOs In Georgia; Stunning Silver UFO Over Ireland, San Antonio Sees Strange Object

Can Earth Be Saved? Can An Asteroid Be Deflected From Its Path? ESA Targets Didymos 

Friendly Aliens Seek Earth Allies, Will Protect Small Countries That Join Them, Capital Of World Will Be In China Says Professor 

Ever Dream This Man? Thousands See Him In Dreams, No One Knows Why

A Fifth Fundamental Force Found? “Long-Range Spin-Spin Interactions”

Alien Spaceship Found In Tunguska Event Crater Claims Russian TV News