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Climate phenomena could have a stronger impact

Oct 14, 2020
The research vessel SONNE en route in the Pacific Ocean. Here, in the so-called Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, the interaction of ocean and atmosphere is particularly evident. Photo: MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen; M. Moht
The research vessel SONNE en route in the Pacific Ocean. Here, in the so-called Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, the interaction of ocean and atmosphere is particularly evident. Photo: MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen; M. Mohtadi

Climate phenomena are globally controlled by the interaction between ocean and atmosphere. These include El Niño and La Niña and the so-called Walker circulation along the equator that strongly influence the present-day climate. Sediment deposits enable researchers to reconstruct the climate of the past and to better understand the ocean-atmosphere interaction. An international team, in which Dr. Mahyar Mohtadi from the MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen is significantly involved, has investigated how ocean temperatures have regulated the climate over the past 25,000 years.

They have now published their results in the journal Science Advances. They establish a connection between the different layers of water in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, which push the circulation system through their different temperatures. The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, located in the equatorial East Indies and in the equatorial West Pacific, has a great influence on the climate worldwide and is considered – due to high temperatures – as the engine of the global atmospheric circulation.

The authors conclude that until 4,000 years ago, higher water temperatures in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool have attenuated climate phenomena such as El Niño. However, this mechanism has reversed and could now lead to a stronger effect of these climate phenomena in the future.

With the help of a device called a CTD rosette, scientists can takes samples from the water column and measure water parameters such as salinity, temperature, oxygen content and particle density. It is lowered into the water from the deck of the Research Vessel SONNE. Photo: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen
With the help of a device called a CTD rosette, scientists can takes samples from the water column and measure water parameters such as salinity, temperature, oxygen content and particle density. It is lowered into the water from the deck of the Research Vessel SONNE. Photo: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen

Original publication:

Haowen Dang, Zhimin Jian, Yue Wang, Mahyar Mohtadi, Yair Rosenthal, Liming Ye, Franck Bassinot, Wolfgang Kuhnt: Pacific warm pool subsurface heat sequestration modulated Walker circulation and ENSO activity during the Holocene. Science Advances 2020. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abc0402

 

Contact:

Dr. Mahyar Mohtadi
Marine Sedimentology
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