Scientists have found that the Arctic Ocean began to heat up earlier than previously thought

The heating of the world's oceans occurs everywhere, and this is primarily due to global warming. But the Arctic Ocean, due to its small size and shallow depth, heats up twice as fast as the rest.

In a scientific study, a scientific group consisting of specialists from different countries found out that the rise in the temperature of the Arctic Ocean began at the beginning of the last century.

New research and its results

So over the past 20 years, warming in the Arctic has been going twice as fast as in the rest of the world. This became known after analyzing data obtained from weather satellites. This process in the Arctic Ocean began through a process called atlantification.

For reference. Atlantification is a process during which the waters of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans are mixed, the water in it is much warmer than in the first one.

Scientists have collected statistics of this process over the past 40 years. And in order to broaden the horizon and thus clarify the data, scientists decided to conduct a deeper scientific study.

Scientists decided to use geochemical and ecological data obtained from ocean sediments in order to reconstruct changes in the properties of the water column over the past 800 years.

So scientists found that the temperature parameters and salinity indicators were constant over an interval of 700 years, and only at the beginning of the 20th century a rather sharp change began. But what became the trigger for such a sharp change in that particular time period, scientists do not yet understand.

The scientists compared the data obtained with ocean circulation at low latitudes and found a fairly strong correlation with the slowing down of dense water formation in the Labrador Sea.

In addition, computer simulations of future warming were carried out and, according to this model, scientists expect and a further decline in deep circulation in the polar region due to the intense melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

This means that, most likely, the heating of the Arctic Ocean will continue at an accelerated pace. What this will ultimately lead to is anyone's guess. Scientists have shared the results of the work already done on the pages of the journal Science Advances.

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