Ocean Circulation Implicated in Past Abrupt Climate Changes

glaciers

A paper co-authored by BIOS President and CEO William Curry found that there was a period during the last ice age when temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere went on a rollercoaster ride, plummeting and then rising again every 1,500 years or so. Those abrupt climate changes wreaked havoc on ecosystems, but their cause has been something of a mystery.

Read More

New Study Links Global Ocean Processes with Local Coral Reef Chemistry

An oceanographic buoy floats in calm ocean water

Five years of data collected on reefs and offshore in Bermuda shows that coral reef chemistry – and perhaps the future success of corals – is tied not only to the human carbon emissions causing systematic ocean acidification, but also to seasonal and decadal cycles in the open waters of the Atlantic, and the balance of biochemical processes in the coral reef community

Read More

Understanding the Ocean of the Past Using Ocean Sediments

ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere

A study published in a recent issue of Nature Geoscience looks at the impacts of historic glacial events, called Heinrich events, on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) by investigating oxygen isotopes in the shells of benthic foraminifera

Read More

The Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) Celebrates A Quarter Century of Science

BATS, CTD

By the end of its first decade, BATS supported 60 different research groups conducting time-series projects near Bermuda, with many scientists using BATS data to make fundamental discoveries about the cycling of trace metals and their relationship with ocean biology, the role of eddies in the cycling of nutrients, and the role of the ocean in the global carbon cycle

Read More