Climate change has been most significant in recent decades, says study

Malaysia Sun (ANI) Friday 7th November, 2008

Washington, Nov 7 : A new study has determined that while Earth experienced numerous changes in climate over the past 65 million years, recent decades have experienced the most significant climate change since the beginning of human civilized societies about 5,000 years ago.

The study was led by oceanographer Charles Greene, from Cornell University in the US.

The paleo-climate record shows very rapid periods of cooling in the past, when temperatures have dropped by as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) in a matter of years to decades.

"The rate of warming we are seeing (now) is unprecedented in human history," said Greene.

During the past 50 years, melting Arctic ice sheets and glaciers have periodically released cold, low-salinity slugs of water from the Arctic Ocean into the North Atlantic.

This has led to dramatic ecosystem shifts as far south as North Carolina and extensive geographic range shifts of many plant and animal species.

One microscopic algal species from the Pacific Ocean, not seen in the North Atlantic for over 800,000 years, has successfully crossed over the Arctic Ocean and reinvaded the North Atlantic during the past decade.

According to Greene, by reviewing climate changes in the past, the researchers were able to more clearly observe how this influx of fresher water has led to changes in ecosystems as well as the geographic distributions of species.

The study findings counter to the expectations of most ecologists that the distributions of southern species will move northward and those of northern species will retreat as the climate warms.

Instead, as colder, fresher Arctic waters flow south along the Northwest Atlantic shelf, from the Labrador Sea south of Greenland all the way to North Carolina, the distributions of many northern species have actually moved southward.

In addition, the periodic freshening of shelf waters can extend the growing seasons of phytoplankton and tiny drifting animals, like copepods, which together make up the base of the marine food chain.

Such climate-driven changes can alter the structure of shelf ecosystems from the bottom of the food chain upwards, according to Greene.

"As climate changes, there are going to be winners and losers, both in terms of biological species and different groups of people," said Greene.