About 20,000 years ago, a blink of an eye in geologic time, the Earth was in an Ice Age. Huge parts of the planet were covered in ice sheets up to a mile thick. About 15,000 years ago, the ice sheets began to melt, and the driver of this process, known as deglaciation, was rising atmospheric CO2 levels.
The first study documenting that deglaciation is linked to increased levels of atmospheric CO2 was published in the early 1980s, yet the underlying driving mechanisms remain unknown more than 30 years later. University of Connecticut Department of Marine Sciences professor David Lund has received $379,000 from the National Science Foundation to study the role of the Atlantic Ocean circulation in storing and releasing carbon, addressing this significant knowledge gap.
Read the complete article here: https://today.uconn.edu/school-stories/ocean-currents-atmospheric-co2-deglaciation/