Climate change is altering the ability of the Southern Ocean off the West Antarctic Peninsula to absorb carbon dioxide, according to a Rutgers-led study, and that could magnify climate change in the long run.
Climate change is altering the ability of the Southern Ocean off the West Antarctic Peninsula to absorb carbon dioxide, according to a Rutgers-led study, and that could magnify climate change in the long run.
The study, led by scientists at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The West Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing some of the most rapid climate change on Earth, featuring dramatic increases in temperatures, retreats in glaciers and declines in sea ice. The Southern Ocean absorbs nearly half of the carbon dioxide – the key greenhouse gas linked to climate change – that is absorbed by all the world’s oceans.
“Understanding how climate change will affect carbon dioxide absorption by the Southern Ocean, especially in coastal Antarctic regions like the West Antarctic Peninsula, is critical to improving predictions of the global impacts of climate change,” said lead author Michael Brown, an oceanography doctoral student in the Center for Ocean Observing Leadership in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.
Read more at Rutgers University
Image: Morning sunlight reflects off sea ice along the West Antarctic Peninsula. (Credit: Drew Spacht/The Ohio State University)
