Rapid Reductions in North Atlantic Deep Water During the Peak of the Last Interglacial Period
Limited Stability
Deep ocean circulation is thought to be stable during warm, interglacial periods. Galaasen et al. (p. 1129, published online 20 February) constructed a highly resolved record of North Atlantic Deep Water production during the last interglacial period, around 128,000 to 116,000 years ago. The findings reveal large, centennial-scale reductions—in contrast to the prevailing paradigm. These changes occurred in an ocean warmer than that of today, but in a temperature regime similar to that expected because of global warming, raising the possibility that future ocean circulation, regional climate, and CO2 sequestration pathways could be impacted.
Abstract
Deep ocean circulation has been considered relatively stable during interglacial periods, yet little is known about its behavior on submillennial time scales. Using a subcentennially resolved epibenthic foraminiferal δ13C record, we show that the influence of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) was strong at the onset of the last interglacial period and was then interrupted by several prominent centennial-scale reductions. These NADW transients occurred during periods of increased ice rafting and southward expansions of polar water influence, suggesting that a buoyancy threshold for convective instability was triggered by freshwater and circum-Arctic cryosphere changes. The deep Atlantic chemical changes were similar in magnitude to those associated with glaciations, implying that the canonical view of a relatively stable interglacial circulation may not hold for conditions warmer and fresher than at present.
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Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Supplementary Text
Figs. S1 to S5
Table S1
References (37–54)
Data Table S1
Resources
References and Notes
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Volume 343 | Issue 6175
7 March 2014
7 March 2014
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Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Received: 18 November 2013
Accepted: 10 February 2014
Published in print: 7 March 2014
Acknowledgments
We thank the crew, chief scientist (C. Laj), and scientific party of the R/V Marion Dufresne; the Institut Polaire Emile Victorfrom the International Marine Global Changes (IMAGES) P.I.C.A.S.S.O. coring cruise; J. Wright for help locating MIS 5e in MD03-2664; two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments; and D. I. Blindheim, O. Hansen, and R. Søraas from the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research for technical assistance. This study was funded by the Meltzer Fund (University of Bergen) and the North Atlantic Ocean–Climate Variability in a Warmer World (NOCWARM) project (Research Council of Norway) and contributes to EU-FP7 IP Past4Future. The data reported in this paper are tabulated in the supplementary materials.
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