A new study suggests that the Gulf Stream – an Atlantic Ocean current that plays a large role in shaping Earth’s weather patterns – is weaker now than at any point in the last 1,000 years. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/gulf-stream-atlantic-weakest-in-over-1000-years…
Tag: ice cores
Could Earth’s Reversing Magnetic Poles Accelerate Climate Change?
A team of researchers from Sydney’s University of New South Wales and the South Australian Museum have investigated how the reversal of Earth’s magnetic pole about 42,000 years could have changed earth’s atmosphere. CNN reports: “Using the ancient trees we could measure, and date, the spike in atmospheric radiocarbon levels caused by the collapse of Earth’s magnetic field,” Chris Turney, a…
Upheaval and extinctions linked to magnetic reversal 42,000 years ago
42,000 years ago, a breakdown in Earth’s magnetic field led to environmental catastrophes and mass extinctions. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/magnetic-field-reversal-42000-years-ago-neanderthal-extinction…
Decoding the age of the ice at Mars’ north pole
Mars’ north pole contains a large ice cap made up of many layers of frozen water. Like ice cores on Earth, those layers offer a tantalizing record of climate on Mars over the past several million years. The first step in decoding that climate record is to figure out how those layers form and how old each one might be—a difficult…
Eastern Alps may have been ice-free in the time of Ötzi the Iceman
Ice cores from a glacier just 12 kilometres from the place the mummified Ötzi the Iceman was found in 1991 suggest that it formed just before or even within his lifetime Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2263399-eastern-alps-may-have-been-ice-free-in-the-time-of-otzi-the-iceman/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Could ice sheets, not rivers, have formed the channels on Mars?
New research suggests that many of Mars’ ancient channels, thought to have been carved by flowing surface water, were formed instead by meltwater beneath glacial ice sheets. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-river-channels-ice-sheets-devon-island-canadian-arctic-archipelago…
New Neanderthal bones found at famous Shanidar Cave
The newly found bones were close to the site of the famous ‘flower burial’ in Shanidar Cave, which overturned notions of Neanderthals as brutish subhumans and suggested they buried their dead. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/new_neanderthal_bones_shanidar_cave…
Himalayan glacier shows evidence of start of Industrial Revolution
Human beings altered one of the highest peaks in the Himalayas hundreds of years before a person ever set foot there, new research has found. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/himalayan-glacier-evidence-start-industrial-revolution…
Did asteroid collision trigger Earth’s abrupt cooling 12,800 years ago?
Why did Earth’s climate rapidly cool 12,800 years ago? New evidence suggests that a comet or asteroid collision is to blame, with support coming from the bottom of a South Carolina lake. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/asteroid-comet-younger-dryas-abrupt-cooling…
Why carbon dioxide has such outsized influence on Earth’s climate
Carbon dioxide, CO2, makes up less than one-twentieth of 1% of Earth’s atmosphere. How does this relatively scarce gas control Earth’s thermostat? Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/why-carbon-dioxide-co2-influence-earths-climate-greenhouse-effect…