The JOIDES Resolution will venture into the Pacific on its first expedition since it was refurbished.
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Image Courtesy of the National Science Foundation
Scientists to Investigate Role of Equatorial Pacific Ocean in Global Climate System
News story originally written on February 23, 2009
A team of scientists is out in the Pacific Ocean by the equator in order to collect sediment cores from the ocean floor. The sediment cores contain information about the Earth's past climate that will help the scientists determine what the climate will be like in the future.
The equatorial Pacific is a complicated region that affects the Earth's climate in many ways. The Sun warms the ocean here, this is one of the main regions where carbon dioxide transfers from the deep ocean to the atmosphere.
Over the last 55 million years, the global climate has gone through different periods of being extremely warm and extremely cold. Information on these past climates is contained in sediments on the ocean floor, and information scientists get from this expedition will help them understand how the Earth has become so warm and cold in the past.
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