Ocean data predicts climate change

U.S. ecologists say oceanographic data now being used to predict future climate change suggest dramatic changes in the Earth's climate and biosphere.

Ecologists and oceanographers led by Charles Green of Cornell University are attempting to predict the future impact of climate change by reconstructing the past behavior of Arctic climate and ocean circulation.

The researchers said if current patterns of change in the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans continue, alterations of ocean circulation could occur on a global scale, with potentially dramatic implications for the world's climate and biosphere.

Green's team reconstructed the patterns of climate change in the Arctic from the Paleocene epoch to the present.

"When the Arctic cools and ice sheets and sea ice expand, the increased ice cover increases albedo, or reflectance of the sun's rays by the ice," said Greene. Such a condition results in global cooling. But when ice sheets and sea ice contract and expose the darker-colored land or ocean underneath -- as is now occurring -- global warning is accelerated.

The study is featured in a November special issue of the journal Ecology.