The world ocean is the largest global thermal reservoir. As a
result of artificial global warming, the temperature in the global
climate system increases; while about 90% of the additional heat is
absorbed by the oceans. This means that the average temperature in the
ocean can tell us about the state of our climate, both today and in the
past. It is extremely difficult to determine the exact average
temperature in all the sea depths and regions of the world. An
international research team led by experts from the Scripps Institute
for Oceanography (USA) has developed a method for measuring ocean
temperature over the past 24,000 years with high accuracy. The method is
based on a stable relationship between the concentration of noble gases
in the atmosphere and the average temperature of the ocean. According
to experts, permafrost is a modern witness to all global temperature
fluctuations on our planet. The layers of perpetual ice in Antarctica
form a kind of archive of the state of the atmosphere, which contains
not only particles of dust and solid particles, but also air and other
gases. The concentration of various gases in air bubbles can be
determined with high accuracy. And we are talking about noble gases:
they are krypton noble gases, xenon, argon.
When analyzing the data, it was found that an increase in the global
mean ocean temperature strongly correlates with the air temperature in
the Antarctic, which underlines the influence of the southern hemisphere
on the global climate. So far, this type of temperature measurement has
been applied only to very large changes over a long period, such as the
transition from the Ice Age to the warm age. However, experts believe
the method should also work to monitor the current changes.
