From RESEARCH ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION AND SYSTEMS and the “goodbye climate disruption” department, comes this study that might very well explain why we have less landfalling U.S. hurricanes, less tornadoes, and extreme weather of all kinds seems to be waning.
Climate instability over the past 720,000 years
Ice core analysis from Dome Fuji, Antarctica and climate simulation
A research group formed by 64 researchers from the National Institute of Polar Research, the University of Tokyo, and other organizations analyzed atmospheric temperatures and dust for the past 720,000 years using an ice core obtained at Dome Fuji in Antarctica. Results indicate that when intermediate temperatures occurred within a glacial period, the climate was highly unstable and fluctuated. A climate simulation was also performed based on the Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model, which revealed that the major cause of the observed climate instability was global cooling by a decline in the greenhouse effect.
Climate instability severely impacts both the Earth’s natural environment and human society. In the continued effort for understanding how global warming could affect climate instability, it is important to identify periods in the past that experienced climate instability. These periods need to be studied and modeled to clarify any potential causes of the observed instability. However, little progress has been made in improving our documenting and understanding of climate instability prior to the last glacial period.
The research groups of Dr. Kenji Kawamura and Dr. Hideaki Motoyama (National Institute of Polar Research) analyzed the Second Dome Fuji ice core (Fig. 1, left) that were obtained as part of the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE) between 2003 and 2007. Their team reproduced fluctuations in the air temperature and dust (solid particulate mat
