Researchers confirm role of massive flood in climate change

Climate modelers at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have succeeded in reproducing the climate changes caused by a massive freshwater pulse into the North Atlantic that occurred at the beginning of the current warm period 8,000 years ago. Their work is the first to consistently model the event and the first time that the model results have been validated by comparison to the record of climate proxies that scientists regularly use to study the Earth's past.

"We only have one example of how the climate reacts to changes, the past," said Gavin A. Schmidt, a GISS researcher and co-author on the study. "If we're going to accurately simulate the Earth's future, we need to be able to replicate past events. This was a real test of the model's skill."