This drop occurred during the 800 thousand years, resulting in carbon dioxide concentration decreased from 280 to 180 parts per million. However, gas can not just disappear, there must be a tank where it is stored. Scientists managed to find this place. They were deep layers of the South Pacific, where the carbon dioxide is stored in the 2-4 km from the surface of the water. The researchers were also able to reconstruct the dynamics of the giant gas storage.
Pacific waters in the southern hemisphere are considered one of the largest global ocean ventilation windows. The global conveyor belt of ocean currents transporting water, rich in carbon, from greater depths to the surface in a relatively short time. Between the gas composition of water and air balance is established, resulting in the release of carbon dioxide from the ocean to the atmosphere and increase the greenhouse effect.
However, the last glacial period, which covers a number of successive glaciations and interglacials, closed ventilation window iz of which carbon dioxide is trapped. Only a small number of deep-water reaches the surface, but this is not enough to maintain the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which had a “drain”. The remains of the rich plant carbon, animals and products of chemical processes on the land surface washed away by rivers into the sea, which were stored in the form of sediment.
At the end of the last ice age, when ice cover of Antarctica significantly decreased, ocean circulation was resumed. Today, carbon-rich water, as before, are transported to the surface of the sea, increasing the greenhouse effect and contributing to the warming of Earth’s atmosphere.
Recall that one of the perpetrators of attack on Earth ice ages and global cooling may be tiny algae.
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