An international team of scientists led by the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) gain managed to open a new window into the climate history of the Arctic Ocean. Using unique sediment samples from the Lomonosov Ridge,the researchers found that six to ten million years ago the central Arctic was totally ice-free during summer and sea-surface temperature reached values of 4 to 9 degrees Celsius. In spring, autumn and winter, and however,the ocean was covered by sea ice of variable extent, the scientists explain in the current issue of the journal Nature Communications. These new findings from the Arctic region provide new benchmarks for groundtruthing global climate reconstructions and modelling.
Source: phys.org