Title: Conclusion Reconstructing and Modeling Past Oceans
Abstract: Paleoscience is recognized as being of great relevance to societal concerns. For example, ice core analyses revealed that greenhouse gas levels are higher today than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years. In other words, anthropogenic impacts are pushing the climate system towards a state for which there is no reference climate in paleo records of the Quaternary. Therefore, a better understanding of the climate system and feedbacks within the climate system is crucial for future. Another disconcerting finding of paleoresearch is the fact that the climate system is highly non-linear: In the past, rapid and large-amplitude climate change has occurred in response to slowly varying, small-amplitude forcing. The ocean's high heat capacity and its ability to transport energy and to sequester and release greenhouse gases give it an important role in helping to determine the state of the planet's climate. Compared to the atmosphere, the ocean has a long response time to perturbations and this makes it a key player in climate change on timescales of hundreds to ten thousands of years. Thus, paleoceanography is a crucial component of paleoclimatic research.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 2
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