Location Map of the drill core and sample locations used in this study
Location Map of the drill core and sample locations used in this study An international team of scientists used molecular fossils and machine learning to build the first charts of Antarctic Ocean temperatures over the past 45 million years, offering important insights into the mechanisms driving temperature changes and into the future of the Antarctic ice sheet and sea level changes. The results suggest we are nearing a tipping point where ocean warming caused by atmospheric CO2 will cause a major rise in sea levels because of melting ice sheets. The team was able to reconstruct the temperatures of the ocean when ice sheets grew and shrank during that period. The future loss of ice sheets and the retreat of glaciers in the Antarctic is critically important as melting ice in the region could cause sea levels to rise by several metres. Fossil molecules. The study, published on September 15 in Nature Geoscience , was led by scientists from Victoria University of Wellington (NZ), GNS Science (NZ), and Birmingham University (UK). The team analysed molecular fossils from a compilation of outcrops and ocean core sediment samples taken during several ocean drilling projects.
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