Climate feedback faster than thought
The Australian ice core drilling camp after a week-long blizzard. Image: Joel Pedro Scientists have shed new light on one of the most important questions in climate science: the time lag between changes in temperature and changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the past.Their findings suggest that feedbacks in the climate system – in which warming is linked to natural carbon dioxide increase, driving further warming – may operate faster than previously thought.In a paper published in the journal Climate of the Past, the researchers use Antarctic and Greenland ice cores to examine temperature and carbon dioxide changes during the largest natural climate change in Earth's recent climate history: the warming out of the last ice age.As Antarctic temperatures increased ocean circulation was altered and carbon dioxide, most likely from the deep Southern Ocean, was releasedto the atmosphere. Previous studies had suggested that it took up to 1000 years for this...