A recent study reveals our warming world is triggering shifts in winds and ocean currents, which is likely contributing to an increase in harmful carbon pollution.
What’s happening?
An international team of scientists, led by Cardiff University researchers, completed a study detailed on Science.org that shows how southern migration of the westerly winds and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current toward the pole during periods when the planet overheated in the past increased the amount of natural carbon released to the atmosphere by the Southern Ocean. Unique among ocean currents, the ACC flows eastward around Antarctica in a closed loop, with no landmasses to impede its path.
Changes in the current are linked to ice ages, with studies showing that during glacial periods, it tends…