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Larger polar warming caused by rising CO2

Jul 3, 2018
Margot Cramwinckel in the Bremen Core Repository. Photo: Carlijne Wijngaarden
Margot Cramwinckel in the Bremen Core Repository. Photo: Carlijne Wijngaarden

Geoscientists have shown for the first time that the earth's polar regions, even if they were ice-free, are warming much more strongly due to rising CO2 concentrations. An international team, including Dr. Ursula Röhl from MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen, has reconstructed the ocean temperatures in the Eocene, a geological time span of 56 to 34 million years, for a study. At that time, both poles of the earth were not covered by ice and snow. The study shows that the concentration of atmospheric CO2 has determined the changing temperatures of the entire planet and that temperatures in the polar regions have changed more than in the tropics. The leading science journal Nature has now published the results.

Original publication

Margot J. Cramwinckel, Matthew Huber, Ilja J. Kocken, Claudia Agnini, Peter K. Bijl, Steven M. Bohaty, Joost Frieling, Aaron Goldner, Frederik J. Hilgen, Elizabeth L. Kip, Francien Peterse, Robin van der Ploeg, Ursula Röhl , Stefan Schouten, Appy Sluijs: Synchronous tropical and polar temperature evolution in the Eocene. Nature, 2018. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0272-2

Close-up of halved sediment core: It contains porcellanite with micrite and some clay. Trace fossils can also be seen. Foto: Margot Cramwinckel
Close-up of halved sediment core: It contains porcellanite with micrite and some clay. Trace fossils can also be seen. Foto: Margot Cramwinckel