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Ocean thermometer from the past

Noble gases dissolved in an ice core from Antarctica have revealed global mean ocean temperatures for 22,000–8,000 years ago with unprecedented accuracy, providing a crucial benchmark for refining climate models.
  1. Rachel H. R. Stanley

    1. Rachel H. R. Stanley is in the Department of Chemistry, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02481, USA.

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Twenty thousand years ago, Earth was nearing the end of a glacial period. Gigantic ice sheets covered much of North America, Europe and Patagonia, air and water temperatures beyond the tropics were 4–23 degrees colder than today1–3, depending on location, and atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide were approximately 35% lower4. For reasons that are still unclear, the planet then transitioned to the warm, interglacial conditions that have lasted for about the past 11,000 years. On page 39, Bereiter et al.5 report that noble gases trapped in an ice core from Antarctica provide a record of past mean ocean temperature during this transition, with unprecedented accuracy (±0.25 °C) and high temporal resolution (250 years). This remarkable record will enable scientists to better formulate and update hypotheses on the transition between the last ice age and present-day warm conditions.

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Nature 553, 30-31 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-017-08721-4

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