oceans and climate

Using sophisticated methods of dating rocks, a team including University of Southampton researchers based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, have pinned down the timing of the start of an episode of an ancient global warming known as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), with implications for the triggering mechanism.

Ongoing climate-driven changes to the Arctic sea-ice could have a significant impact on the blooming of tiny planktonic plants (phytoplankton) with important implications for the Arctic ecosystem, according to new research conducted by scientists at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC).

Scientists are unravelling the environmental changes that took place around the Arctic during an exceptional episode of ancient global warming. Newly published results from a high-resolution study of sediments collected on Spitsbergen represent a significant contribution to this endeavour.

Scientists at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) will participate in an international effort to assess the efficacy of ocean iron fertilisation (OIF) in reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as its potential impacts on marine ecosystems.

Tiny organisms preserved in marine sediments hold clues about Arctic climate variation during an ancient episode of greenhouse warming.

Dr Heiko Pälike of the University of Southampton’s School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES) based at National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, has been awarded the prestigious Wollaston Fund, presented by the Geological Society, London, the Learned and Professional Society for Geoscientists in the UK.

A major Southampton-led consortium project to study past and possible future sea-level rise has received a major grant award of £3.3 million over five years from the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Rapid turnover and remodelling of lipid membranes could help phytoplankton cope with nutrient scarcity in the open ocean.

A team led by scientists at the National Oceanography Centre have measured the air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide in the open ocean at higher wind speed then anyone else has ever managed. Their findings are important for understanding how interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere influence climate.

Dr Kevin Horsburgh and Prof. John Huthnance of the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) are among the organizers of an ongoing programme of workshops and conferences being held at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI) in Cambridge entitled ‘Mathematical and Statistical Approaches to Climate Modelling and Prediction’ (11 August – 22 December 2010).