The polar regions communicate via postcards and text messages

A new study found two types of climatic connection between the North Atlantic and Antarctica. One is a rapid atmospheric channel and the other a much slower connection through the ocean. During the last glacial period, these links resulted in abrupt climatic changes - and could so again in future. In a study just published in the journal "Nature", an international team of researchers describes how an ocean current repeatedly strengthening and weakening again 60,000 to 12,000 years ago led to an extremely sudden change in the climate. The current is known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and warms Greenland and Europe with the warm water that it sends into the North Atlantic with the Gulf Stream. The new research findings show how these extreme events, also known as "Dansgaard-Oeschger Events", affect Antarctica at the other side of the world. "The North Atlantic sends messages to the Antarctic on two different timescales," explains the lead author of the study, Christo Buizert, a climate change specialist at Oregon State University (USA).