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Scripps Researcher: Warming Climate Can Support Glacial Ice

Research into Earth's ancient past may provide clues of what we can expect of the climate in the future. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce has more.

Scripps Researcher: Warming Climate Can Support Glacial Ice

Research into Earth's ancient past may provide clues of what we can expect of the climate in the future. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce has more.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography Professor Richard Norris says his research challenges the generally accepted belief that huge ice sheets could not have existed on Earth during super-warm climate periods. He says the evidence comes from his study of the chemical changes in marine microfossils deposited on the ocean floor 91 million years ago.

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Norris: And that chemical change is consistent with the growth of big ice sheets someplace on the planet. And we calculated that those ice sheets were probably about a little more than half the size of the modern Antarctic ice cap.

He says the presence or absence of sea ice has major environmental implications. Norris says as humans continue to add greenhouse gases that accelerate the heating of the planet, research on Earth's past climate conditions is critical to predict what will happen to a warming climate in the future.

Ed Joyce, KPBS News.