Critical issue: Oceans
With 70% of the earth’s surface covered by oceans and seas, oceans play a vital role in influencing and regulating the earth’s climate. Studies that look at the ecological and societal impacts of climate changes are mostly based on slow and gradually changing scenarios. However, abrupt climate changes are particularly harmful because they are unexpected, and hence beyond our current adaptation measures.
According to US National Research Council, ‘technically, an abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to cross some threshold, triggering a transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faster than the responsible cause’. Paleoclimatic records have shown that large-magnitude, wide-spread, and high-impact abrupt climate changes have taken place many times over the geological record.
One of the well-known triggers of these abrupt changes is the deep ocean circulation, also called the global conveyor belt or thermohaline circulation (THC). Therefore, understanding the keys to future abrupt climate changes is critical for both climate scientists and policy makers. Based on our current knowledge, the deep ocean circulation is one of the important keys to future abrupt climate changes, and research by Yi Wang analyses THC to model possible future abrupt changes.
Publications
- Wang, Y. and Lawrence A. Mysak (2005). Response of the ocean, climate and terrestrial carbon cycle to Holocene freshwater discharge. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, L15705, DOI:10.1029/2005GL023344, 2005.
- Rahmstorf, S., M. Crucifix, A. Ganopolski, H. Goosse, I. Kamenkovich, R. Knutti, G. Lohmann, B. Marsh, L.A. Mysak, Z. Wang, and A. Weaver (2005). Thermohaline circulation hysteresis: a model intercomparison. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, L23605, DOI: 10.1029/2005GL023655.