Repeated catastrophic ice discharges from western North America into the North Pacific contributed to, and perhaps triggered, hemispheric-scale changes in the Earth’s climate during the last ice age, new research published online today in Science reveals.
Repeated catastrophic ice discharges from western North America into the North Pacific contributed to, and perhaps triggered, hemispheric-scale changes in the Earth’s climate during the last ice age, new research published online today in Science reveals.
The discovery provides new insight into the impact rapidly melting ice flowing into the North Pacific may have on the climate across the planet, said Maureen Walczak, a paleoclimatologist in Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and the study’s lead author.
“Understanding how the ocean has interacted with glacial ice in the past helps us predict what could happen next,” Walczak said.
The Cordilleran ice sheet once covered large portions of western North America from Alaska to Washington state and western Montana. Radiocarbon dating and analyses of the marine sediment record revealed that recurrent episodes of discharge from this ice sheet over the past 42,000 years were early events in a chain reaction of disturbances to the global climate. These disturbances triggered changes in deep ocean circulation and retreat of ice sheets in the North Atlantic.
Read more at Oregon State University
Image: The JOIDES Resolution, a research vessel that drills into the ocean floor to collect and study core samples is seen at the Port of Valdez. The JR is a part of the International Ocean Discovery Program and is funded by the National Science Foundation. (Credit: Bill Mills, IODP/TAMU [Photo ID: exp346_003])
