Ice age climate analysis reduces worst-case warming expected from rising CO2

Credit: Mauricio Anton

This artist’s rendition shows woolly mammoths in northern Spain. These animals lived in Europe and North America during the last glacial period, around 21,000 years ago. A new study used updated climate maps from that period, when atmospheric carbon dioxide was lower, to better predict future warming under rising CO2.

« Ice age climate analysis reduces worst-case warming expected from rising CO2

Credit: Cooper et al./Science Advances

The left panel shows the sea surface temperature map during the most recent ice age, 21,000 years ago, compared to modern preindustrial temperatures. This new, more detailed analysis shows that the strong cooling over the northern oceans, caused by the North American ice sheet, contributed substantially to total global cooling. The right panel shows that the warming of the ocean’s surface expected under future doubling of atmospheric CO2 displays a different pattern of temperature change, with a lower expectation for globally averaged warming than previous worst-case estimates.

« Ice age climate analysis reduces worst-case warming expected from rising CO2

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