Understanding the causes of recent catastrophic ice shelf disintegrations is a crucial step towards improving coupled models of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and predicting its future state and contribution to sea-level rise. An overlooked climate-related causal factor is regional sea ice loss. Here we show that for the disintegration events observed (the collapse of the... Continue Reading →
In the Southern Ocean, nutrient-rich North Atlantic Deep Water upwells to the surface, and the northward surface water sinks at mid-depth (as Subantarctic Mode Water and Antarctic Intermediate Water) and transports nutrients into the low-latitude thermocline. According to a recent article appeared in Science, climate model simulations under RCP 8.5 scenario project that the Antarctic... Continue Reading →
Rising temperatures in the Arctic Ocean region are responsible for changes such as reduced ice cover, permafrost thawing, and increased river discharge, which, together, alter nutrient and carbon cycles over the vast Arctic continental shelf. We show that the concentration of radium-228, sourced to seawater through sediment-water exchange processes, has increased substantially in surface waters... Continue Reading →
A 1000-yr control simulation in a low-resolution coupled atmosphere–ocean model from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) family of climate models shows a natural, highly regular multidecadal oscillation between periods of Southern Ocean (SO) open-ocean convection and nonconvective periods. It is shown here that convective periods are associated with warming of the SO sea surface... Continue Reading →
Ocean to Climate 