Science/Tech

A New Climate Change Research Underway In Oman [VIDEO]

By Gerard Black | Update Date: Apr 14, 2017 10:00 AM EDT

An international team of geologists and climate change scientists are drilling into the mountain valleys of Oman to find clues on how to reverse global warming in new climate change research.

The new climate change research is in part funded by NASA and is currently drilling cores into the world's largest exposed section of the planet's mantle in the al-Hajjar mountains in Oman. The exposed mantle is riddled with a rock called periodite that pulls out carbon from the air and water around it to produce marble and limestone, the Times of Oman reported.

The Oman Drilling Project aims to study the core samples extracted to map the geologic history of how the rocks were able to turn so much carbon dioxide into carbonate. They also would like to find out if there is a way to expedite the process to be able to start staving off the effects of global warming. The samples will then be sent to the research vessel Chikyu which is off the coast of Japan, the Associated Press reported.

Peter Kelerman of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory hopes that this new climate change research will be picked up by energy companies so more funding and drilling expertise will be infused into this $3.5 million project.

The energy industry's expertise in drilling could help develop a drilling operation where the mechanism will process carbon-rich water and pump it into the newly formed seabed in the oceanic ridges. The seabed will then chemically absorb carbon from the water and then cycle back the water to the surface to capture more carbon from the atmosphere.

They hope that eventually they will be able to absorb the billions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that causes heat to be trapped in what is known to be the greenhouse effect. The Paris Agreement hopes to arrest global warming to just 2 degrees Celsius by setting out a global action plan of reducing carbon emissions of 197 countries that ratified the agreement.

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