According to a recent scientific study on the effects of global warming, climate changes that happened in the past are closely linked to the ones that are happening now in Antarctica.
A team of researchers from the Montana State University found that there is a link between the ice cores from the southern and northern hemispheres.
The scientists explain in their study that the abrupt changes in temperature that occurred in the North Pole had a very big influence on the temperatures of South Pole regions.
According to what the research team found, it looks like the climate changes that originated in the Arctic regions have spread all the way to the Antarctic.
John Priscu, polar ecologist and one of the scientists involved in the study, said that the recent findings are very important for a better understanding on how climate can oscillate between the north and the south pole.
Priscu said that this is the kind of information that will help the scientists look at global climate dynamics from a different perspective and it will also help them assess future climate regimes.
In order to come to this conclusion, the researchers collected samples of ice core from an area in West Antarctica known as WAIS Divide. The regions received this name because of its very thick layer of ice, annual snow fall and simple ice flow.
According to the research team, when it snows in this parts of the Antarctic knows as WAIS Divide, the snow hardly melts.
Because of this, the snow builds up in very thick layers of frozen snow every year, and the snow gets compressed into the ice by the subsequent snowfalls.
The scientists said that inside the compacted snow there are different chemicals, microbes, dust and atmospheric gas, all trapped in the frozen layers of snow.
The researchers explained in their study that all the dust, chemicals and bacteria trapped in the ice indicate what kind of climate was in the past. Also, the gas that is contained in the air bubbles can provide a sample of ancient atmosphere.
Scientists say that the deeper the layers of ice are, the older the atmosphere is. This helps them make measurements and determine what the atmosphere was like a very long time ago.
For their study, the scientists examined a sample of the ice core collected from the site. The ice core was 4.8 inches in diameter and about 11,200 ft in length.
Image Source: cambridge.org
