Washington, May 27 (ANI): A new study has provided some of the strongest evidence to date that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) played a key role in the shifting of tropical, greenhouse climate of the Eocene to modern and much cooler climates.
"What we have found is that the evolution of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current influenced global ocean circulation much earlier than previous studies have shown," said Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute scientist Miriam Katz, who led the research.
"This finding is particularly significant because it places the impact of initial shallow ACC circulation in the same interval when the climate began its long-term shift to cooler temperatures," added Katz.
"These climate changes are one of the most significant shifts in Earth's history, from early Cenozoic 'greenhouse' climates to the mid- to late Cenozoic 'icehouse' that saw repeated massive glaciations of the polar regions," said Candace Major, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences.
"The work by Katz and colleagues is the first to demonstrate that the basic structure of currents associated with modern ocean circulation has existed for the past 33 million years," added Major.
The study is detailed in the journal Science. (ANI)
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