Evolution of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Through Plio-Pleistocene Glaciation
Abstract
A tropical Pacific climate state resembling that of a permanent El Niño is hypothesized to have ended as a result of a reorganization of the ocean heat budget ∼3 million years ago, a time when large ice sheets appeared in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. We report a high-resolution alkenone reconstruction of conditions in the heart of the eastern equatorial Pacific (EEP) cold tongue that reflects the combined influences of changes in the equatorial thermocline, the properties of the thermocline's source waters, atmospheric greenhouse gas content, and orbital variations on sea surface temperature (SST) and biological productivity over the past 5 million years. Our data indicate that the intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation ∼3 million years ago did not interrupt an almost monotonic cooling of the EEP during the Plio-Pleistocene. SST and productivity in the eastern tropical Pacific varied in phase with global ice volume changes at a dominant 41,000-year (obliquity) frequency throughout this time. Changes in the Southern Hemisphere most likely modulated most of the changes observed.
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We acknowledge the Ocean Drilling Program (Texas A&M University) for supplying sediment samples. This work was supported by an Evolving Earth Foundation research grant (K.T.L.), by NSF through grant OCE-526372 (T.D.H.) and a graduate research fellowship (K.T.L.), and by the Geological Society of America through research grant #7447-03 (K.T.L.). We thank L. C. Cleaveland, L. Albertson, and L. Seckel for their help in laboratory analyses; L. Lisiecki for age model assistance; W. H. Hutson for time series analysis advice; and W. D'Andrea, C. Chazen, L. Lisiecki, A. C. Ravelo, and A. Fedorov for thoughtful suggestions. Data are available online (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/paleocean.html).
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Volume 312 | Issue 5770
7 April 2006
7 April 2006
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American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Received: 20 September 2005
Accepted: 24 February 2006
Published in print: 7 April 2006
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