Explains the leading theories for how the sun influences the atmosphere on time scales up to the length of the 11-year solar cycle. Lars Franzen of Gothenburg University in Sweden thinks that peat bogs, by absorbing so much carbon from the atmosphere, eventually cools the Earth causing ice age cycles. A modeling team at the U.K. Hadley Centre for climate prediction has been able, for the first time, to reproduce past fluctuations of the Earth's climate. 360-361, Oct. 21. Describes the wide variety of research based at Toolik Lake, Alaska, one of the 18 Long-Term Ecological Research sites supported by the National Science Foundation.
Many scientists expect the Arctic to be a bellwether of any climate change.
The spread of ice in the Northern Hemisphere began up to five million years earlier than was generally believed, according to new evidence from the Ocean Drilling Program. The age of the Greenland ice cap and the uneven growth of northern ice sheets are new puzzles for climatologists. The U.S. should fund the work needed to integrate such data into existing global archives. A recent study shows that adjustment of surface fluxes of heat and moisture between the atmosphere and ocean, often made to coupled atmosphere-ocean models, may disguise but not correct model defects. P.H. Stone, J. Marotzke, J. Clim.