According to an October 31 news release from Rutgers University, the intermediate waters of the Pacific Ocean are absorbing heat 15 times faster over the last six decades than in the past 10,000 years. This finding is based on the results of a new study led by Yair Rosenthal, a professor of marine and coastal sciences in Rutgers’ School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. According to the researchers, the heat produced by human activities has been absorbed into these intermediate layers for the last 60 years, acting as a buffer against global warming. Though this increased heat absorption may give scientists and global policymakers more time to address the climate change issue, Rosenthal warns that the problem must be addressed in due course. “We may have underestimated the efficiency of the oceans as a storehouse for heat and energy,” Rosenthal said. ”It may buy us some time – how much time, I don’t really know – to come to terms with climate change. But it’s not going to stop climate change.” The researchers used the shells of tiny, single-celled, bottom-dwelling foraminifera called Hyalinea balthica from sediment cores collected from the seas surrounding Indonesia – where the Pacific and Indian Oceans overlap – to reassemble the Pacific Ocean’s heat content over the last 10,000 years. The researchers measured the ratio of magnesium to calcium in the shells of the Hyalinea balthica, and observed that the warmer the waters when the organism calcified, the greater the magnesium to calcium ratio. Read more: http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news...st-60-years-than-in-past-10000/#ixzz2jPC7VYU6
