Study North Atlantic Oscillation Variability and Climate Warming
Using a 218-year-long temperature record from a Bermuda brain coral, researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have reportedly created the first marine-based reconstruction showing the long-term behavior of one of the most important drivers of climate fluctuations in the North Atlantic. "By analyzing the coral, we were able to look at changes in the ocean relative to changes on land," said Nathalie Goodkin, lead author of the study published in the December issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. "Because they are slow growing and have long life-spans, corals can provide high resolution records that are well dated and centuries long." By analyzing the strontium to calcium ratio in the Bermuda brain coral, Goodkin and colleagues -- WHOI scientists Konrad Hughen, Scott Doney and William Curry -- were able to reconstruct monthly changes in ocean temperatures and evaluate variability of the NAO during both cold and warm periods from the Little Ice Age (1800-1850) to modern day. The research team found the variability of the NAO decade-to-decade (multi-decadal scale) has been larger, swinging more wildly, during the late twentieth century than in the early 1800s, suggesting that variability is linked to the mean temperature of the Northern Hemisphere. This confirms variability previously reported in past terrestrial reconstructions.
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Marine Technology Reporter 25
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