A detailed reconstruction of climate during the most recent ice age, when a large swath of North America was covered in ice, provides information on the relationship between CO2 and global temperature. Results show that while most future warming estimates remain unchanged, the absolute worst-case scenario is unlikely.
As carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, the Earth will get hotter. But exactly how much warming will result from a certain increase in CONew research led by the University of Washington analyzes the most recent ice age, when a large swath of North America was covered in ice, to better understand the relationship between COand global temperature. It finds that while most future warming estimates remain unchanged, the absolute worst-case scenario is unlikely.
Instead, the new study focused on a period 21,000 years ago, known as the Last Glacial Maximum, when Earth was on average 6 degrees Celsius cooler than today. Ice core records show that atmospheric CO"The paleoclimate record includes long periods that were on average much warmer or colder than the current climate, and we know that there were big climate forcings from ice sheets and greenhouse gases during those periods," Cooper said.
For the new study the authors combined prehistoric climate records -- including ocean sediments, ice cores, and preserved pollen -- with computer models of Earth's climate to simulate the weather of the Last Glacial Maximum. When much of North America was covered with ice, the ice sheet didn't just cool the planet by reflecting summer sunlight off the continents, as previous studies had considered.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense's National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European Union's Horizon 2020 program. Other co-authors are Jessica Tierney at the University of Arizona; Matthew Osman at the University of Cambridge in the U.K.
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