global teleconnections in response to a shutdown of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation abstract the global response to a shutdown of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc is investigated by conducting a water hosing experiment with a coupled ocean atmosphere general circulation model in the model the addition of freshwater in the subpolar north atlantic shuts off the amoc the intense cooling in the extratropical north atlantic induces a widespread response over the global ocean in the tropical atlantic a sea surface temperature sst dipole forms with cooling north and warming on and south of the equator this tropical dipole is most pronounced in june december displacing the atlantic intertropical convergence zone southward in the tropical pacific a sst dipole forms in boreal spring in response to the intensified northeast trades across central america and triggering the development of an el nino like warming that peaks on the equator in boreal fall in the extratropical north pacific a basinwide cooling of 1 c takes place with a general westward increase in in

modelling glacial climatic millennial scale variability related to changes in the atlantic meridional overturning circulation a review abstract since the discovery of glacial abrupt variability in greenland and the north atlantic about two decades ago its modelling remains a conceptual and technical challenge while the global climatic signature of heinrich events can reasonably be ascribed to the fresh water discharge related to the massive iceberg armadas released by the laurentide ice sheet in the north atlantic the existence of such a triggering mechanism is elusive as far as dansgaard oeschger type variability is concerned even if other mechanisms have been proposed the majority of modelling attempts to better understand glacial climate variability has assumed it to be linked to abrupt variations in the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc in this review we introduce the rationale behind this approach i e the possible existence of several deep ocean circulation equilibria associated with distinct climate signatures we then review the published fresh water hosing experiments and the mechanisms at work to explain the climate differences related to the different amoc states most of these works have been performed under pre industrial boundary conditions the few hosing experiments run under glacial conditions show that the sensitivity of the climate system to fresh water hosing is very dependent on the background climate state in order to rigourously compare several types of experiments equilibrium runs vs transient runs with pre industrial vs glacial boundary conditions we present experiments especially run for this review with two climate models of intermediate complexity uvic and loveclim although there are similarities between the responses simulated by these models there are also many differences which would benefit being compared to reconstructions such as those presented in this special issue however a strict comparison will require to consider boundary conditions as realistic as possible for marine isotopic stage 3 modelling glacial variability to compare model results with paleoclimatic data remains a big challenge

enso variability and teleconnections during glacial climates abstract understanding the origin of sub milankovitch and millennial scale abrupt climate change still poses a major challenge an important role of communicating the orbital scale forcing into abrupt climate change on millennial and centennial timescales has been hypothesized for the tropics in earlier studies based on the assumption of stationary teleconnections this paper presents a modelling study for the last glacial maximum and marine isotope stage 3 using the comprehensive climate model ccsm3 glacial boundary conditions and freshwater hosing at high latitudes of the north atlantic are imposed to mimic a heinrich stadial and dansgaard oeschger stadials and interstadials it is shown that glacial enso variability is strongly enhanced by a substantial slowdown of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation the simulations also suggest that glacial boundary conditions induce major modifications to enso teleconnections and that the blueprint of modern enso teleconnections should only be applied with caution to glacial climate periods

the sensitivity of the climate response to the magnitude and location of freshwater forcing last glacial maximum experiments abstract proxy records indicate that the locations and magnitudes of freshwater forcing to the atlantic ocean basin as iceberg discharges into the high latitude north atlantic laurentide meltwater input to the gulf of mexico or meltwater diversion to the north atlantic via the st lawrence river and other eastern outlets may have influenced the north atlantic thermohaline circulation and global climate we have performed last glacial maximum lgm simulations with the ncar community climate system model ccsm3 in which the magnitude of the freshwater forcing has been varied from 0 1 to 1 sv and inserted either into the subpolar north atlantic ocean or the gulf of mexico in these glacial freshening experiments the less dense freshwater provides a lid on the ocean water below suppressing ocean convection and interaction with the atmosphere above and reducing the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc this is the case whether the freshwater is added directly to the area of convection south of greenland or transported there by the subtropical and subpolar gyres when added to the gulf of mexico the amoc reduction is less for the smaller freshwater forcings but is not linear with the size of the freshwater perturbation the recovery of the amoc from a slow state is 200 years for the 0 1 sv experiment and 500 years for the 1 sv experiment for glacial climates with large northern hemisphere ice sheets and reduced greenhouse gases the cold subpolar north atlantic is primed to respond rapidly and dramatically to freshwater that is either directly dumped into this region or after being advected from the gulf of mexico greenland temperatures cool by 6 8 c in all the experiments with little sensitivity to the magnitude location or duration of the freshwater forcing but exhibiting large seasonality sea ice is important for explaining the responses the northern hemisphere high latitudes are slow to recover antarctica and the southern ocean show a bipolar response with warming and reduced sea ice this warming continues after the cessation of the freshwater forcing and shows a dependence on the duration of the freshwater forcing equatorward of the expanded sea ice the simulated temperature and salinity anomalies are sensitive to the amount of colder and fresher waters that are advected out of the subpolar north atlantic in the tropical atlantic the recovery of the intertropical convergence zone itcz from its more southerly position during the freshwater forcing is much more rapid than the recovery of the amoc and is more related to the recovery of low latitude surface temperatures than greenland temperature or sea ice these results have implications for using proxy records as indirect measures of the amoc

a continuum mixture model of ice stream thermomechanics in the laurentide ice sheet 1 theory we employ a continuum mixture framework to incorporate ice streams in a three dimensional thermomechanical model of the laurentide ice sheet the ice mass is composed of a binary mixture of sheet ice which deforms by viscous creep and stream ice which flows by sliding and or sediment deformation at the bed dynamic and thermal evolutions are solved for each component in the mixture with coupling rules to govern transfer between flow regimes we describe two different transfer mechanisms 1 creep exchange the nourishment of ice streams by viscous creep inflow from the surrounding ice sheet and 2 bed exchange the activation growth and deactivation of ice streams perpetrated by transfers of bed area between flow constituents this paper develops the underlying mixture theory we express the governing equations for mass momentum and energy balance in a form suitable for direct incorporation in existing numerical models of ice thermomechanics a companion paper in this issue explores mixture and ice stream behavior in applications with the laurentide ice sheet

origin and consequences of cyclic ice rafting in the northeast atlantic ocean during the past 130 000 years deep sea sediment cores recovered from the northeast atlantic ocean were examined in order to elucidate the influence of the earth s orbital parameters on major ice rafting analyses of coarse grained ice rafted debris and planktonic foraminifers revealed a strong reaction to the precession signal since 130 000 yr b p dropstone layers have been deposited each half period of a precessional cycle 11 000 1000 yr ice rafting occurs during times of winter minimum summer maximum insolation and summer minimum winter maximum insolation in the first case high summer insolation forces meltwater discharge from the ice sheets into the polar seas which subsequently enhances formation of sea ice during the winter in the second case growth of continental ice enhances iceberg production which also leads to a salinity reduction of surface seawater both situations result in a southward penetration of polar water thus the marine record of dropstones documents ice rafting not only during weichselian stades but also during cold events within interstades the regularity of ice rafting yields a useful framework to calibrate and elucidate climatic changes not only in the region of the north atlantic ocean but also in remote areas such as the pacific ocean and the antarctic

chronology and paleoenvironment of marine isotope stage 3 from two high elevation speleothems austrian alps abstract a new high resolution stable isotope record from the alpine kleegruben cave 2165 m central alps is presented this record largely duplicates a previously reported speleothem record from this site high precision u series thermal ionization mass spectrometry dates constrain the growth history of this new sample 56 48 ka to the marine isotope stage mis 3 both stalagmites reveal highly similar variations in o isotopes that can be directly compared to o isotope variability associated with dansgaard oeschger interstadials recorded in the greenland ice cores greenland interstadials gis based on the new record we refine our previous age assignments of the gis during this time interval i e gis 15b at 55 7 ka gis 15a at 55 3 ka onset mid point of the prominent gis 14 at 54 5 yr and onset of gis 12 at 48 ka the overall uncertainties associated with these ages are 0 1 0 3 ka the timing of these dansgaard oeschger interstadials is within 0 2 ka of the newly proposed grip sfcp04 timescale the age data for both kleegruben stalagmites demonstrate that liquid water was at least seasonally present in the shallow sub surface allowing calcite precipitation to continue even during stadials of mis 3 given the present day low temperature 2 4 c we propose that these unusual speleothems formed in a karst system overlain by a warm based glacier

rapid changes of glacial climate simulated in a coupled climate model abrupt changes in climate termed dansgaard oeschger and heinrich events have punctuated the last glacial period approximately 100 10 kyr ago but not the holocene the past 10 kyr here we use an intermediate complexity climate model to investigate the stability of glacial climate and we find that only one mode of atlantic ocean circulation is stable a cold mode with deep water formation in the atlantic ocean south of iceland however a warm circulation mode similar to the present day atlantic ocean is only marginally unstable and temporary transitions to this warm mode can easily be triggered this leads to abrupt warm events in the model which share many characteristics of the observed dansgaard oeschger events for a large freshwater input such as a large release of icebergs the model s deep water formation is temporarily switched off causing no strong cooling in greenland but warming in antarctica as is observed for heinrich events our stability analysis provides an explanation why glacial climate is much more variable than holocene climate

effects of glacial meltwater in the giss coupled atmosphere ocean model 2 a bipolar seesaw in atlantic deep water production the relationship between the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere deep water circulation systems is explored in experiments with gradual and impulsive freshwater input through the st lawrence with sufficient freshwater volume input 50 sv years north atlantic deep water nadw cessation occurs as does substantial cooling in the northern hemisphere the colder temperatures are accompanied by increased mass and sea level pressure in the northern hemisphere with corresponding lower pressure in the southern hemisphere the low pressure response occurs at high southern latitudes consistent with the antarctic annular mode the leading mode of variability in the current climate stronger winds associated with this increased cyclonicity intensify the antarctic circumpolar current acc with heat flux divergences in the south atlantic and convergences and warming in the indian ocean weddell sea bottom water production increases in response to the south atlantic high latitude cooling and sea ice growth hence acting as a seesaw with the decreasing nadw and even global antarctic bottom water increases although not as strongly the initial seesaw response occurs within a few years although it takes some 100 years to maximize due to the response time of the acc the south atlantic cooling occurs approximately in phase with the north atlantic so the seesaw is not in temperature within that ocean basin however warming in portions of the southern indian ocean occurs out of phase with the northern hemisphere cooling nadw does not resume of its own accord once complete cessation occurs even when freshwater input is stopped but when increased evaporation is used to force nadw formation temporarily weddell sea bottom water decreases accordingly

binge purge oscillations of the laurentide ice sheet as a cause of the north atlantic s heinrich events ice rafted debris in sediment cores from the north atlantic suggests that the laurentide ice sheet lis periodically disgorged icebergs in brief but violent episodes which occurred approximately every 7 000 years here i propose that heinrich events i e what these episodes are called were caused by free oscillations in the flow of the laurentide ice sheet which arose because the floor of hudson bay and hudson strait is covered with soft unconsolidated sediment that forms a slippery lubricant when thawed the proposed heinrich event cycle has two phases the growth phase occurs when the sediment is frozen and the lis is stranded immobile on a rigid bed the volume of the lis slowly grows during this phase at a rate dictated by snow accumulation the purge phase occurs when the basal sediment thaws and a basally lubricated discharge pathway i e an ice stream such as those which occur in west antarctica today developes through hudson strait the volume of the lis rapidly equilibrates to the reduced basal friction during this phase by dumping icebergs into the labrador sea the periodicity t k sl2g 2 7000 years of the proposed heinrich event cycle is a function of the thermal conductivity and diffusivity of ice k and respectively the atmospheric sea level temperature sl in degrees celsius and the excess geothermal heat flux defined by g g k where is the atmospheric lapse rate and g is the geothermal heat flux agreement between the predicted t and the apparent periodicity implied by the marine record is the main virtue of the free oscillation mechanism i propose an alternative mechanism in which heinrich events are forced by periodic variations in external climate is implausible because periodic atmospheric temperature perturbations are strongly attenuated with depth in an ice sheet

impact of oceanic reorganizations on the ocean carbon cycle and atmospheric carbon dioxide content a zonally averaged circulation biogeochemical ocean model is used to explore how the distribution of po4 and 13c in the major basins and the atmospheric pco2 respond to rapid changes in the thermohaline circulation thc different evolutions of the atlantic thc are simulated by applying surface freshwater pulses typical for example of heinrich events and the last deglaciation in the model when the thc completely collapses po4 increases 0 5 mmol m 3 and 13c decreases 1 because of a longer residence time of waters at the surface these surface anomalies are propagated to the bottom north atlantic when the thc resumes when the thermohaline overturning is only partly reduced and at shallower depths changes in bottom waters are accompanied by a po4 decrease and 13c increase at intermediate levels in the mid latitude atlantic this results in enhanced vertical gradients of these properties consistent with chemical and isotopic reconstructions for the last glacial maximum finally the atmospheric pco2 increases during the cold period in the north atlantic when the thc is reduced with an amplitude 7 30 atm and timescale 10 to 1 2 10 yr depending on the intensity of the thc change this is qualitatively consistent with recent data from an antarctic ice core documenting a pco2 increase during the younger dryas and after heinrich events 4 and 5

adjustment of the coupled ocean atmosphere system to a sudden change in the thermohaline circulation 1 the adjustment of the coupled ocean atmosphere system to a fresh water anomaly in the north atlantic ocean is investigated using a coupled gcm in response to the anomaly the atlantic thermohaline circulation thc collapses and the associated reduction in northward heat transport causes sea surface temperatures sst to fall over the north atlantic and to increase over the tropical south atlantic atmospheric feedbacks are excited as soon as the sst anomalies reach sufficient magnitude a key stage in the adjustment process occurs 4 6 years after the perturbation is introduced when a significant sst dipole develops in the tropical atlantic this dipole causes a southward shift of the itcz and leads in year 7 to the triggering of an el nino event it is concluded that atmospheric feedbacks could spread globally the influence of a sudden change in the thc much more quickly and efficiently than could ocean processes alone

the role of the north atlantic drift in the millennial timescale glacial climate fluctuations abstract the greenland ice core records show that the overall cold climate of the last glacial period was repeatedly interrupted by short rapid warmings the events known as dansgaard oeschger d o events are strongly imprinted in the north atlantic marine records suggesting that they were linked to north atlantic circulation changes however the causes of the d o events are poorly understood and they represent one of the most intriguing puzzles of the last glacial period in order to investigate a possible mechanism we have studied variations in the distribution of benthic and planktonic foraminifera oxygen isotopes and ice rafted debris during the last glacial period in eight cores from the north atlantic and the nordic seas taken at mid depth from 853 to 1760 m the parameters indicate in agreement with previous studies that the circulation system during the interstadials resembled the present system atlantic surface water flowed north into the nordic seas where most of it sank through convection and as cold deep water flowed back into the north atlantic during the stadials a halocline was established in the nordic seas and in the northernmost part of the north atlantic and the outflow from the nordic seas stopped however below the cold light surface layer the relatively warm water of the north atlantic drift continued to flow across the north atlantic and into the nordic seas here warming up the deep water masses we suggest that the warm water gradually made the water column unstable the pivotal abrupt climate warmings were caused by sudden upwelling of the deep warm water masses causing overturning of the entire water column and onset of convection

climate swings come into focus the last glacial period was far from quiet during so called heinrich events large armadas of icebergs were shed from the ice sheet that covered much of north america the tracks of debris left by the melting icebergs can still be seen in sediment cores from the north atlantic in their perspective broecker and hemming 1 report from a recent miniconference that attempted to chart the climatic impacts of these events 1 http www sciencemag org cgi content short 294 5550 2308

fast teleconnections to the tropical atlantic sector from atlantic thermohaline adjustment 1 we examine the first decade of adjustment of the north atlantic climate following an abrupt freshening of the high north atlantic and resulting slowdown of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc in a coupled model with reference to previously proposed teleconnection mechanisms after an initial ocean driven cooling at the subtropical subpolar gyre boundary subsequent equatorward progression is dominated by an atmosphere surface ocean mechanism driving evaporative cooling in the tropical north atlantic and resulting in an anomalous southward itcz displacement by year 2 the tropical cooling is countered by fast ocean baroclinic adjustment to the reduced overturning that increases the volume of tropical surface waters as well as ocean circulation changes to the increased northeasterly trades however it is the atmosphere surface ocean teleconnection that explains the hemispheric asymmetric nature of the tropical atlantic surface climate impact to amoc slowdown underlining its crucial importance in high to low latitude teleconnections

asynchronous deposition of ice rafted layers in the nordic seas and north atlantic ocean instabilities in ice stream flow within the north american laurentide ice sheet leading to the periodic release of armadas of icebergs into the north atlantic ocean over the past 60 000 years have produced extensive layers of coarse grained iceberg rafted debris heinrich layers in north atlantic sediments1 2 correlation of these layers with iceberg discharge events from the ice sheets on greenland iceland and scandinavia suggested in previous studies for some heinrich layers and in some areas3 4 5 would imply that ice sheet instability had been synchronous across the north atlantic presumably in response to a common environmental cause here we show a lack of widespread systematic correlations both between ice rafted debris layers in different sediment cores from the nordic seas and between the nordic layers and the north atlantic heinrich layers this suggests that the full glacial nordic ice sheets did not exhibit unstable behaviour coincident with iceberg discharge from the vast hudson bay drainage basin of the laurentide ice sheet6 7 off the hudson strait significant ice sheet discharge of melt water is indicated by size sorted sandy and muddy turbidite sediments different from the poorly sorted debris flows which dominate sedimentation on the margins of the nordic seas8 9 10 together these results suggest that the dynamics of quaternary ice sheets surrounding the nordic seas were different from the outlet glacier draining the hudson bay basin and they provide evidence against a common circum north atlantic mechanism driving the discharge of icebergs

temporal geographical meltwater influences on the north atlantic conveyor implications for the younger dryas the temporal and geographical roles of meltwater discharge from the laurentide ice sheet on north atlantic deep water nadw production are investigated utilizing a global realistic geometry coupled climate model which does not require the use of flux adjustments model results suggest that preconditioning by meltwater discharge to the mississippi prior to the younger dryas yd is capable of pushing nadw beyond the limit of its sustainability the diversion of meltwater to the st lawrence then merely serves to completely inhibit nadw production the modeled change in surface air temperature generally agrees with the global pattern and magnitude of temperature change seen in paleoclimatic reconstructions of the yd and is intimately linked to changes in nadw formation the global thermohaline circulation provides an interhemispheric teleconnection with the southern oceans while changes in the atmospheric heat transport reacting to a global redistribution of oceanic heat transport provide a mechanism for interbasin teleconnection although the primary thermodynamic and hydrological cycle feedback processes are included within the atmospheric model in the absence of additional feedbacks an equilibrium without the presence of nadw is possible the inclusion of the wind stress speed feedback is found to significantly contribute to the resumption of nadw production as suggested by previous studies contrary to these same studies however the coupled model indicates an advective spin up timescale is required for resumption of nadw production and hence the termination of the modeled yd like climate event as opposed to a decadal century timescale the reason for the discrepancy is unclear but may be associated with the use of fixed salt flux fields applied in previous studies or the duration strength and geographical location of the imposed meltwater applied

a minimum thermodynamic model for the bipolar seesaw 1 the simplest possible model is proposed to explain a large fraction of the millennial climate variability measured in the isotopic composition of antarctic ice cores the model results from the classic bipolar seesaw by coupling it to a heat reservoir in this thermal bipolar seesaw the heat reservoir convolves northern time signals with a characteristic timescale applying the model to the data of grip and byrd we demonstrate that maximum correlation can be obtained using a timescale of about 1000 1500 years higher correlations are obtained by first filtering out the long term variability which is due to astronomical and greenhouse gas forcing and not part of the thermal bipolar seesaw the model resolves the apparent confusion whether northern and southern climate records are in or out of phase synchronous or time lagged

large fluctuations of dissolved oxygen in the indian and pacific oceans during dansgaard oeschger oscillations caused by variations of north atlantic deep water subduction a s and s h were supported by the paleoclimate program of the national science foundation as part of the paleovar project atm 0602395

mechanisms for millennial scale global synchronization during the last glacial period global climate during the last glacial period was punctuated by abrupt warmings and occasional pulses of freshwater into the north atlantic that disrupted deepwater production these massive freshwater pulses known as heinrich events arose in part from instabilities within the laurentide ice sheet paleoevidence from the north atlantic suggests that these events altered the production of deep water and changed downstream climate throughout the northern hemisphere in the tropical western pacific sea surface temperatures and salinity varied together with ocean and climate changes at high latitudes here we present results from coupled modeling experiments that shed light on a possible dynamical link between the north atlantic ocean and the western tropical pacific this link involves a global oceanic standing wave pattern brought about by millennial scale glacial density variations in the north atlantic atmospheric teleconnections triggered by meridional sea surface temperature gradients and local air sea interactions furthermore our modeling results are compared with hydrological records from the cariaco basin the indian ocean the sulu sea and northern australia

chemical modification of enclave magma by post emplacement crystal fractionation diffusion and metasomatism hornblende bearing microgranitoid enclaves from the swifts creek pluton scp se australia display mineralogical and textural variations from their margins to their centers margins are fine grained and display quench textures and are enriched in amphibole biotite and in some cases magnetite relative to their coarser grained centers enclaves of this type and their adjacent granitoid host rocks have been sectioned into 0 3 to 1 cm thick slabs in order to determine the chemical variations associated with these mineralogical changes the fine grained margins are variably enriched in ti al mg fe mg k rb ba nb y sc v ni and the ree up to a factor of three relative to the enclave centers this enrichment is compensated by a depletion of si and zr elements like ca na and sr show less coherent variation from margin to center host rocks in immediate contact with these enclaves are depleted in mg na k rb and ba relative to host rocks that are not exposed to enclaves no one single process can account for all the variations instead we propose that the chemical variations are related to a combination of in situ crystal fractionation of isolated magma globules mass transfer by diffusion and metasomatic exchange

spatial and temporal correlation between coda q and seismicity in china a map of coda q at 1 hz q was constructed for china by analyzing more than 1000 seismograms from 80 seismic stations distributed throughout china the resultant contour map of q shows a strong correlation with the epicenters of historic great earthquakes in china the high q regions are devoid of the epicenters and the low q regions are full of them a remarkably linear relation was found between the logarithm of coda q and the maximum earthquake within the area sampled by coda waves radius of about 150 km from each station when we consider earthquakes which occurred from 1700 to present roughly speaking if q is 1000 m max is about 4 and if q is 100 m max is about 8 this relation will be very useful for siting critical facilities such as nuclear power plants and waste disposal sites we also found evidence in support of the migration of low q region coincident with the well known migration of high seismicity region over the distance of several hundred kilometers during the period of several hundred years if the migration is due to a diffusion process the diffusion constant is of the order of 100 km2 yr which agrees very well with those associated with the aftershock migration fluid injection and vp vs anomaly comparison of coda q with q1 estimated from the intensity data shows that they agree very well for q1 150 supporting the validity of the s to s single backscattering model for coda waves for q1 150 however coda q becomes constant independent of q1 this behavior is qualitatively consistent with numerical experiments of frankel and clayton and suggests that coda q may be measuring the intrinsic q of about 150 for these regions where q1 150 this limiting coda q value may depend on regions because coda q lower than 100 has been observed in some active regions in this study and also coda q as low as 30 to 40 has been reported in california mexico and italy

high latitude salinity effects and interhemispheric thermohaline circulations a general circulation model for the ocean is used to investigate the interaction between the global scale thermohaline circulation and the salinity distribution it is shown that an equatorially asymmetric circulation can be maintained even under equatorially symmetric basin geometry and surface forcing multiple equilibrium solutions are obtained for the same forcing by perturbing the high latitude salinity field in an otherwise equatorially symmetric initial condition the timescale of the transition from the symmetric circulation to an asymmetric circulation depends critically on the sign of the initial salinity perturbation

on the driving processes of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation because of its relevance for the global climate the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc has been a major research focus for many years yet the question of which physical mechanisms ultimately drive the amoc in the sense of providing its energy supply remains a matter of controversy here we review both observational data and model results concerning the two main candidates vertical mixing processes in the ocean s interior and wind induced ekman upwelling in the southern ocean in distinction to the energy source we also discuss the role of surface heat and freshwater fluxes which influence the volume transport of the meridional overturning circulation and shape its spatial circulation pattern without actually supplying energy to the overturning itself in steady state we conclude that both wind driven upwelling and vertical mixing are likely contributing to driving the observed circulation to quantify their respective contributions future research needs to address some open questions which we outline

sahel megadroughts triggered by glacial slowdowns of atlantic meridional overturning 1 the influence of the large scale ocean circulation on sahel rainfall is elusive because of the shortness of the observational record we reconstructed the history of eolian and fluvial sedimentation on the continental slope off senegal during the past 57 000 years our data show that abrupt onsets of arid conditions in the west african sahel were linked to cold north atlantic sea surface temperatures during times of reduced meridional overturning circulation associated with heinrich stadials climate modeling suggests that this drying is induced by a southward shift of the west african monsoon trough in conjunction with an intensification and southward expansion of the midtropospheric african easterly jet

zooming in on heinrich layers theories explaining the origin of the abrupt massive discharges of ice rafted detritus ird into the glacial north atlantic the heinrich layers hls generally point to the laurentide ice sheet as the sole source of these events until it was found that the irds also originated from icelandic and european ice sheets bond and lotti 1995 snoeckx et al 1999 grousset et al 2000 this apparent contradiction must be reconciled as it raises fundamental questions about the mechanism s of hl origin we have analyzed two 12 cm thick hls in an ultrahigh resolution mode 1 2 century intervals in a mid atlantic ridge piston core the 18o record n pachyderma left coiling reveals strong excursions induced by the melting of the icebergs these excursions are associated with a strong decrease in the amount of planktic foraminafersand with a 3 c cooling of the surface waters counts of coarse detrital grains reveal that ird are deposited according to a typical sequence 1 volcanic glass 2 quartz and feldspars 3 detrital carbonate that implies a chronology in the melting of the differentpan atlantic ice sheets sr and nd isotopic composition confirm that in both heinrich layers h1 and h2 precursor ird came from first europe iceland followed then by laurentide derived ird an internal cyclicity can be identified during h1 and h2 about four to six major abrupt discharges occurred roughly on a century timescale the 13c and 15n records reveal that dominant inputs of continent derived organic matter are associated with ird within the hls hiding the plankton productivity signal