January 13, 2017
Earth’s climate has undergone dramatic shifts between glacial and interglacial time periods, with high-latitude temperature changes on the order of 5–10 °C. These climatic shifts have been associated with major rearrangements in the deep ocean circulation and stratification, which in turn have likely played a key role in the climate fluctuations by affecting the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. In a new paper published in PNAS, assistant professor Malte Jansen suggests that the inferred changes in the deep ocean circulation and stratification are driven by sea ice processes around Antarctica, which in turn can be directly attributed to atmospheric temperature differences.