North Pole 'was once subtropical'

[Shadowfax]

North Pole 'was once subtropical'

Last Updated: Tuesday, 7 September, 2004, 10:13 GMT 11:13 UK

An international scientific team which has been drilling beneath the bed of the Arctic Ocean says it enjoyed a sub-tropical climate 55 million years ago.

The Arctic Coring Expedition (Acex) has recovered sediment cores from nearly 400m (1,300ft) below the sea floor.

It says fossilised algae in the cores show the sea temperature was once about 20C, instead of the average now, -1.5C.

The expedition, which has relied on three icebreakers during its work, is now heading back to Tromso in Norway.

interesting read...

 

[unclehobart]

I wonder how long it will take for them to find the cars and coal-fired industrial plants of the dinosaurs that caused such a global warming cotastrophe. Shame on the dinosaurs.

 

[chcr]

I thought all that stuff has been understood for years? Heck, in the last 55 million years the north pole has been the south pole more than once...

 

[BeardofPants]

Well, yes... Already knew that...

 

[unclehobart]

Apparently this is a mild amount of physical proof to substatiate the myriad of hypothesis that have been stating as much. The media is fickle at times. Theres no telling what will set them off. Some days it takes fact while other days it takes mere rumor.

 

[Inkara1]

Wow... proof of plate tectonics and the existence of Pangaea. Amazing.

 

[Gonz]

55 million years ago.

We'd better get rid of those stupid catalytic converters. They're slowing down the warm up.

Kinda blows the whole humans are destroying nature theory huh?

 

[ris]

the bit i though was most interesting was this:

It was characterized by an extremely warm climate that created a natural greenhouse effect, which caused massive amounts of carbon to be deposited in both sea and air....

....Dr Michael Kaminski, a palaeontologist from University College London, UK, said: "We're seeing a mass extinction of sea-bottom-living organisms caused by these conditions.

"Moving forward in time, we see many species disappear. Only a few hardy survivors endure the thermal maximum."