www.physorg.com id186161122 February 23rd … some geologists think ice existed at the equator some 300 million years ago during the Palaeozoic (final stages) and research is ongoing to find out why this should be so.
www.physorg.com February 23rd again … climatologists are looking at features other than greenhouse gases as drivers of climate. The oceans are known to play a role – such as ENSO events and El Ninos. The latter is actually impacting on global temperatures in 2009 and 2010 and as oceans cover over 70 per cent of the global surface they obviously play an important role in our climate. It is thought they are a kind of thermostat, storing energy from the Sun in the top 10 feet of sea-water. Heat and moisture from the oceans are transferred to the atmosphere, and vice versa. NASA GISS and the Met office think 2010 might be the warmest year ever because of the current El Nino which is taking place and adding to the global average temperature.
id186076175 … the March 2010 issue of the journal Oceanography is a special edition on research beneath the oceans, aimed at various mountains beneath the South Pacific. Chains of mountains march across the sea bottom and others occur as isolated peaks or volcanoes, sometimes surfacing as islands. Most of them are unexplored.