Article: "Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations over the Last Glacial Termination."
- Correlation between CO2 concentration and Antarctic temperatures over 6000 years indicates Southern Ocean had important role in causing CO2 increase.
- Comparison of deuterium (proxy for temperature) and CO2 indicate lag of CO2 behind temperature change by 410 years.
- CO2 in the atmosphere rose from 189 ppmv to 265 in 6000 years.
Source: Science, Volume 291, Number 5501.
Date: 2001 January 5
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Article: "Synchronous Tropical South China Sea Surface Temperature and Greenland Warming During Deglaciation."
Sea surface temperature records from tropical South China Sea show abrupt temperature increase at the end of the last glacial period, synchronous with warming observed 14,600 years ago on Greenland.
Source: Science, Volume 291, Number 5511.
Date: 2001 March 16
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Article: "Tropical Origins for Recent North Atlantic Climate Change."
- North Atlantic climate change since 1950 is linked to warming of tropical sea surface temperatures.
- Oceans may be responding to solar forcing, as shown in data since 1000 AD.
- Oceans may also be responding to changes in atmosphere since 1950 due to human activities.
Source: Science, Volume 292, Number 5514.
Date: 2001 April 6
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Article: "Anthropogenic Warming of Earth's Climate System."
- Increased ocean heat since 1950 may largely be due to increase in anthropogenic gases in atmosphere.
- The dominant change in heat content of the Earth's climate system in the past fifty years is associated with the warming of the world ocean.
Source: Science, Volume 292, Number 5515.
Date: 2001 April 13
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Article: "Detection of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the World's Oceans."
- The Parallel Climate Model has closely replicated observances of increases in heat content of the world's oceans.
- Observed ocean heat changes consistent with those predicted by the model for anthropogenic forcing.
Source: Science, Volume 292, Number 5515.
Date: 2001 April 13
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Article: "Climate Response to Orbital Forcing Across the Oligocene - Miocene Boundary."
- Orbital forcing of climate leads, and perhaps drives, changes in the ocean carbon budget.
- Persistent and strong link between Earth's orbit eccentricity forcing and climatic response.
Source: Science, Volume 292, Number 5515.
Date: 2001 April 13
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Article: "Collapse of the California Current During Glacial Maxima Linked to Climate Change on Land."
- Sea surface temperatures along the California coast warmed 10,000-15,000 years in advance of global deglaciation at each of the past five glacial maxima.
- Climate change occurs nonsynchronously across the globe.
Source: Science, Volume 293, Number 5527.
Date: 2001 July 6
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Article: "Warming of the Southern Ocean Since the 1950s."
- Mid-depth Southern Ocean temperatures have risen 0.16 degrees C from the 1950s to the 1980s, nearly double the global trend.
- Carbon dioxide storage capacity of the Southern Ocean has decreased since the 1950s.
Source: Science, Volume 295, Number 5558.
Date: 2002 February 15
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Article: "Otolith Oxygen Isotope 18 Record of Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures in Peru."
Otoliths of Peruvian sea catfish indicate that mean annual sea surface temperatures were 3-4 degrees C warmer about 6450 years ago compared to recent years.
Source: Science, Volume 295, Number 5559.
Date: 2002 February 22
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Article: "Abrupt Decrease in Tropical pacific Sea Surface Salinity at End of Little Ice Age."
Sea surface temperature and salinity of ocean in tropical south western Pacific were higher in 18th century than in 20th century.
Source: Science, Volume 295, Number 5559.
Date: 2002 February 22
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Article: "Low-Frequency Signals in Long Tree-Ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability."
- Tree-ring chronologies can preserve coherent large-scale multicentennial temperature trends.
- These chronologies support large-scale occurrence of Medieval Warming Period over the Northern Hemisphere extratropics centered at 1000 AD.
- Strong evidence for below-average temperature over much of 1200-1850 AD.
- The 1000- to 2000-year climate rhythm in the North Atlantic ocean may be cause of multicentennial variations.
Source: Science, Volume 295, Number 5563.
Date: 2002 March 22
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Article: "Rapid Bottom Melting Widespread near Antarctic Ice Sheet Grounding Lines."
- Bottom melt rates of large outlet glaciers from continental Antarctic are far higher than previously assumed.
- Melting rate positively correlated with thermal forcing, increasing by 1 metre per year for each 0.1 degree Celcius rise in ocean temperature.
Source: Science, Volume 296, Number 5575.
Date: 2002 June 14
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Article: "Super ENSO and Global Climate Oscillations at Millenial Time Scales."
- Since last glacial maximum, 22,000 years ago, sea surface temperatures of tropical Pacific ocean have warmed about 2 degrees Celcius (summer) and 3 degrees (winter).
- Variability of tropical Pacific temperature over past glacial period (22,000 years ago to 64,000 years ago) average 1-2 degrees celcius.
- In western tropical Pacific, ocean was saltier through much of past 70,000 years than today.
- Millennial-scale El Nino-like conditions may have shifted atmospheric convection away from west tropical Pacific, explaining lower atmospheric carbon dioxide, N2O, and methane during stadial periods.
Source: Science, Volume 297, Number 5579.
Date: 2002 July 12
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Article: "El Nino-Like Pattern in Ice Age Tropical Pacific Sea Surface Temperature."
- Sea surface temperatures of the eastern equatorial Pacific exert powerful controls on global atmospheric circulation patterns.
- Sea surface temperatures varied consistently with Earth's orbital precession-induced changes in seasonality during past 30,000 years.
Source: Science, Volume 297, Number 5579.
Date: 2002 July 12
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Article: "Weakening of tropical Pacific atmospheric circulation due to anthropogenic forcing."
- Weakened surface winds have altered thermal structure and circulation of tropical Pacific Ocean.
- Climate models indicate cause is man-made.
Source: Nature, Volume 441, Number 7089.
Date: 2006 May 4
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Article: "Links between annual, Milankovitch and continuous temperature variability."
- Surface temperature variability on an annual cycle scales to monthly and decadal periods.
- Millenial and longer periods scale with Milankovitch cycles (23,000 and 41,000 years).
- Oceans may represent a "memory" of high-frequency variability to pregressively larger and longer-period variations.
Source: Nature, Volume 441, Number 7091.
Date: 2006 May 18
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Article: "Subtropical Arctic Ocean temperatures during the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum."
- 55 million years ago was brief period of widespread, extreme climatic warming, with massive atmospheric climatic warming, with massive atmospheric greenhouse gas input.
- Sea surface temperatures near the North Pole increased from 18 degrees C to 23C during this event, implying an absence of ice, excluding influence of ice-albedo feedback on Arctic warming.
- Derived temperatures are 10 degrees C warmer than model predictions, suggesting other feedback mechanism must have been present, and are not currently incorporated in models.
Source: Nature, Volume 441, Number 7093.
Date: 2006 June 1
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Article: "Episodic fresh surface waters in the Eocene Arctic Ocean."
- Arctic ocean temperature 50 million years ago was about 20 degrees C warmer than today.
- Prior to introduction of salt water from adjacent oceans, high latitudes were kept warm likely due to increased greenhouse gas concentrations and associated feedbacks.
Source: Nature, Volume 441, Number 7093.
Date: 2006 June 1
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Article: "The Cenozoic palaeoenvironment of the Arctic Ocean."
- Cooling of the Arctic 45 million years ago coincided with Antarctic cooling.
- Temperature of surface waters of Arctic 55 million years ago about 24 degrees C, ice-free and biologically productive.
Source: Nature, Volume 441, Number 7093.
Date: 2006 June 1
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Article: "Surface and Deep Ocean Interactions During the Cold Climate Event 8200 Years ago."
- 8490 years ago, freshwater from melting ice of the Laurentide Ice Sheet caused cooling of the North Atlantic, interrupting the meridional overturning circulation, causing cold climate in Europe.
- Another cooling occurred 8290 years ago.
Source: Science, Volume 312, Number 5782.
Date: 2006 June 30
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Article: "Gulf Stream density structure and transport during the past millennium."
Diminished oceanic heat transport during 1200-1850 may have contributed to North Atlantic cooling.
Source: Nature, Volume 444, Number 7119.
Date: 2006 November 30
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Article: "Negligible glacial-Interglacial variation in continental chemical weathering rates."
- Chemical weathering of the continents, which draws carbon dioxide into the oceans, does not differ greatly between glacial and interglacial periods.
- Enhanced weathering of silicate glacial sediments during interglacial periods results in net draw-down of atmospheric carbon dioxide, creating positive feedback on global climate, promoting cooling.
Source: Nature, Volume 444, Number 7121.
Date: 2006 December 14
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Article: "The Heartbeat of the Oligocene Climate System."
- Record of period 23-34 million years before present reveals cycles of 96,000-, 127,000-, 405,000-, and 1.2 million-year lengths, affecting global carbon cycle and periodicity of glaciations.
- 405,000 year cycle is amplified by long residency time of carbon in oceans.
- Cycles may be driven by expansion and contraction of biosphere productivity in response to changes in solar insolation.
Source: Science, Volume 314, Number 5807.
Date: 2006 December 22
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Article: "Climate Change Affects marine Fishes Through the Oxygen Limitation of Thermal Tolerance."
- Warming oceans will cause extinction or relocation to cooler waters of some fish species.
Source: Science, Volume 315, Number 5808.
Date: 2007 January 5
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Article: "Effect of natural iron fertilization on carbon sequestration in the Southern Ocean."
- The Southern Ocean is most sensitive oceanic body to climate change.
- Iron fertilization of surface waters during glacial times by enhanced dust deposition may explain lower atmospheric CO2 during colder climates.
- Natural iron fertilization from below results in high carbon sequestration efficiency.
- Short-term iron addition experiments cannot be extrapolated to longer timescales.
Source: Nature, Volume 446, Number 7139.
Date: 2007 April 26
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Article: "Observational evidence for an ocean heat pump induced by tropical cyclones."
- Ocean mixing is linked to ocean's ability to store and transport heat.
- Measured mixing rates are significantly lower than those inferred from budget analyses.
- Tropical cyclones are responsible for significant cooling and vertical mixing of surface ocean in tropical regions.
- Magnitude of mixing strongly related to sea surface temperature.
- Future increases in tropical temperatures may feed back on climate, distribute heat pole-ward, raise global mean temperature.
Source: Nature, Volume 447, Number 7144.
Date: 2007 May 31
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