The Southern Ocean appears to be increasing its intake of greenhouse gases, better combatting the effects of climate change.
According to Reuters, authors of a study published in the journal Science noticed how the ocean surrounding Antarctica has apparently broken its stalled carbon intake. The Southern Ocean absorbed approximately 1.2 billion tons of carbon in 2011, about twice its usual intake.
"We were surprised to see such large variations in this ocean's net carbon uptake," study co-author Nicolas Gruber, a professor of environmental physics at ETH Zurich and the lead researcher on the project, said in a press release.
He told Reuters the findings should be considered "good news, for the moment," as this is not a sustainable way to stop climate change's adverse effects in Antarctic.
"Our statistical model is not able to predict the future development," study lead author Peter Landschützer, a postdoc at ETH Zurich, said in the release, "so it is very critical to continue measuring the surface ocean CO2 concentrations in the Southern Ocean."
The Southern Ocean's stall in carbon absorption dates back to the 1980s, Reuters noted, which had climatologists worrying about more greenhouse gases bing left in the atmosphere.
"This is particularly important since current models are not able to reproduce the observed variations" Gruber said.
Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, wrote for Science, "It is not yet clear how this region will respond to future changes in climate."
