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Southern Hemisphere and Deep-Sea Warming Led Deglacial Atmospheric CO2 Rise and Tropical Warming

Core Locations and depth of isopycnal surface sigma t = 27.6 kg/m3.
Figure 1. Core locations and depth of the isopycnal surface (σ t = 27.6 kg/m3, relative to the 0 m), (shown with color shading), pre-bomb 14C ages interpolated onto σ t (contour lines), and geostrophic velocity on σ t (blue and magenta vectors). Click image for full figure.

Southern Hemisphere and Deep-Sea Warming Led Deglacial Atmospheric CO2 Rise and Tropical Warming

Science
Vol. 318. No. 5849, pp. 435 - 438, 19 October 2007, doi:10.1126/science.1143791.

Lowell Stott1, Axel Timmermann2, and Robert Thunell3

1 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.

2 International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.

3 Department of Geological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.

ABSTRACT:
Establishing what caused Earth's largest climatic changes in the past requires a precise knowledge of both the forcing and the regional responses. We determined the chronology of high- and low-latitude climate change at the last glacial termination by radiocarbon dating benthic and planktonic foraminiferal stable isotope and magnesium/calcium records from a marine core collected in the western tropical Pacific. Deep-sea temperatures warmed by ~2°C between 19 and 17 thousand years before the present (ky B.P.), leading the rise in atmospheric CO2 and tropical-surface-ocean warming by ~1000 years. The cause of this deglacial deep-water warming does not lie within the tropics, nor can its early onset between 19 and 17 ky B.P. be attributed to CO2 forcing. Increasing austral-spring insolation combined with sea-ice albedo feedbacks appear to be the key factors responsible for this warming.
Download data from the WDC Paleo archive:
Western tropical Pacific stable isotope and Mg/Ca Data, Text or Excel format.

To read or view the full study, please visit the Science website.
It was published in Science, Vol. 318. No. 5849, pp. 435 - 438, 19 October 2007, doi:10.1126/science.1143791.
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