The deep Pacific is a climate time capsule from the ‘little ice age,’ 19th century ship records show
By Paul VoosenDec. 18, 2017 , 3:00 PM
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA—A global cooling trend known as the “little ice age†ended centuries ago, but it lives on in the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean, researchers reported here last week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. What’s more, this oceanographic time capsule could be helping blunt some of today’s human-driven warming, at least for now.
The oceans are a massive heat reservoir, absorbing some 90% of the warming from human-caused climate change. But this modern heat doesn’t penetrate evenly—or quickly—into their vast depths. As part of a network of global ocean currents called the thermohaline circulation, chilled surface waters in the North Atlantic Ocean dive into the deep and, over the course of many centuries, wind their way to the deep North Pacific, which is in many ways Earth’s cold storage locker.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/deep-pacific-climate-time-capsule-little-ice-age-19th-century-ship-records-show
