Georgia Tech researchers led by Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, a professor in the School of Earth of Atmospheric Sciences have finished investigating how the prehistoric weakening of a major ocean current led to a decline in ocean nutrients and negative impacts on North Atlantic ocean life. The results support predictions about how our oceans might react to a changing climate — and what that means for ocean life.

“The research tests a concept that has previously only been explored in theory and models,” says lead author Lynch-Stieglitz. “The large-scale Atlantic overturning circulation provides the nutrients that underly biological productivity in the North Atlantic.”

(This research also appeared in List23.)