millennial scale changes in sea surface temperature and ocean circulation in the northeast pacific 10 60 kyr bp 1 a new centennial scale mg ca temperature record from the california margin odp site 1017e reveals large millennial scale oscillations between 10 to 60 kyr this record indicates that sea surface temperature on the california margin warmed rapidly on the deglacial by 7 4 0 8 c and was preceded by a pre bolling temperature oscillation of 2 6 1 2 c millennial scale events of the last glacial episode were marked by sea surface temperature oscillations of between 3 and 7 c on the california margin and interstadials were associated with an increase in surface water salinity the data are consistent with evidence for a glacial southward shift in the polar jet stream and concomitant strengthening of the relatively cold fresh california current during stadial events the data also support previous hypotheses suggesting a tight coupling between the north atlantic and northeast pacific response to climate instability of the last glacial episode

changing atmospheric δ14c and the record of deep water paleoventilation ages we propose a new calculation method to better estimate the deep water ventilation age from benthic planktonic foraminifera 14 c ages our study is motivated by the fact that changes in atmospheric 14 c through time can cause contemporary benthic and planktonic foraminifera to have different initial 14 c values this effect can cause spurious ventilation age changes to be interpreted from the geologic data using a new calculation method 14 c projection ages we recalculate the data from the pacific ocean contrary to previous results we find that the pacific intermediate and deep waters were about 600 years older than today at the last glacial maximum in addition there are possible signals of ventilation age change prior to ice sheet melting and at the younger dryas however the data are still too sparse to constrain these ventilation transients

a model data comparison of δ13c in the glacial atlantic ocean 1 we compare a compilation of 220 sediment core 13c data from the glacial atlantic ocean with three dimensional ocean circulation simulations including a marine carbon cycle model the carbon cycle model employs circulation fields which were derived from previous climate simulations all sediment data have been thoroughly quality controlled focusing on epibenthic foraminiferal species such as cibicidoides wuellerstorfi or planulina ariminensis to improve the comparability of model and sediment core carbon isotopes the model captures the general 13c pattern indicated by present day water column data and late holocene sediment cores but underestimates intermediate and deep water values in the south atlantic the best agreement with glacial reconstructions is obtained for a model scenario with an altered freshwater balance in the southern ocean that mimics enhanced northward sea ice export and melting away from the zone of sea ice production this results in a shoaled and weakened north atlantic deep water flow and intensified antarctic bottom water export hence confirming previous reconstructions from paleoproxy records moreover the modeled abyssal ocean is very cold and very saline which is in line with other proxy data evidence

consistent relationship between global climate and surface nitrate utilization in the western subarctic pacific throughout the last 500 ka 1 the open subarctic pacific is at present a high nitrate low chlorophyll hnlc region where nitrate is perennially abundant at the surface theoretically the hnlc status of this region is subject to modification by ocean circulation and or micronutrient supply with implications for the effectiveness of the biological pump and hence carbon sequestration in the ocean interior records of biogenic detritus in sediments from throughout the subarctic pacific indicate that export production was generally lower during glacial maxima while nitrogen isotope measurements from the bering sea have shown that nitrate consumption there was more complete during the last glacial period than it is today here nitrogen isotopic analyses of bulk sediments 15nbulk from three deep water sites in the open subarctic pacific are evaluated in terms of regional nitrate isotopic composition and local relative nitrate utilization the eastern subarctic pacific 15nbulk record bears great similarity to 15nbulk records from the western margin of north america over the last glacial cycle suggesting that variability in the isotopic composition of subeuphotic zone nitrate the growth substrate is reasonably coherent throughout the northeast pacific and dominates at these sites however the two western subarctic pacific records which lie at the heart of the hnlc region display a different pattern implying that significant changes in local relative nitrate utilization overlie the regional background variability after a novel correction intended to remove the background signal associated with denitrification in the eastern tropical north pacific these nitrate utilization records are correlated with a benthic oxygen isotope stack reflecting global deep ocean temperature and ice volume r2 0 65 the correlation implies a strong link between global climate and subarctic pacific nitrate utilization with nearly complete nitrate consumption during glacial periods when export production was low

deep water formation in the north pacific and deglacial co2 rise deep water formation in the north atlantic and southern ocean is widely thought to influence deglacial co 2 rise and climate change here we suggest that deep water formation in the north pacific may also play an important role we present paired radiocarbon and boron isotope data from foraminifera from sediment core md02 2489 at 3640 m in the north east pacific these show a pronounced excursion during heinrich stadial 1 with benthic planktic radiocarbon offsets dropping to 350 years accompanied by a decrease in benthic 11 b we suggest that this is driven by the onset of deep convection in the north pacific which mixes young shallow waters to depth old deep waters to the surface and low ph water from intermediate depths into the deep ocean this deep water formation event was likely driven by an increase in surface salinity due to subdued atmospheric monsoonal freshwater flux during heinrich stadial 1 the ability of north pacific deep water npdw formation to explain the excursions seen in our data is demonstrated in a series of experiments with an intermediate complexity earth system model these experiments also show that breakdown of stratification in the north pacific leads to a rapid 30 ppm increase in atmospheric co 2 along with decreases in atmospheric 13 c and 14 c consistent with observations of the early deglaciation our inference of deep water formation is based mainly on results from a single sediment core and our boron isotope data are unavoidably sparse in the key hs1 interval so this hypothesis merits further testing however we note that there is independent support for breakdown of stratification in shallower waters during this period including a minimum in 15 n younging in intermediate water 14 c and regional warming we also re evaluate deglacial changes in north pacific productivity and carbonate preservation in light of our new data and suggest that the regional pulse of export production observed during the bolling allerod is promoted by relatively stratified conditions with increased light availability and a shallow potent nutricline overall our work highlights the potential of npdw formation to play a significant and hitherto unrealized role in deglacial climate change and co 2 rise

links between iron supply marine productivity sea surface temperature and co2 over the last 1 1 ma received 3 july 2008 revised 9 october 2008 accepted 27 october 2008 published 14 february 2009 1 paleoclimatic reconstructions have provided a unique data set to test the sensitivity of climate system to changes in atmospheric co2 concentrations however the mechanisms behind glacial interglacial g ig variations in atmospheric co2 concentrations observed in the antarctic ice cores are still not fully understood here we present a new multiproxy data set of sea surface temperatures sst dust and iron supply and marine export productivity from the marine sediment core ps2489 2 odp site 1090 located in the subantarctic atlantic that allow us to evaluate various hypotheses on the role of the southern ocean so in modulating atmospheric co2 concentrations back to 1 1 ma we show that antarctic atmospheric temperatures are closely linked to changes in so surface temperatures over the last 800 ka and use this to synchronize the timescales of our marine and the european project for ice coring in antarctica epica dome c edc records the close correlation observed between iron inputs and marine export production over the entire interval implies that the process of iron fertilization of marine biota has been a recurrent process operating in the subantarctic region over the g ig cycles of the last 1 1 ma however our data suggest that marine productivity can only explain a fraction of atmospheric co2 changes up to around 40 50 ppmv occurring at glacial maxima in each glacial stage in this sense the good correlation of our sst record to the edc temperature reconstruction suggests that the initial glacial co2 decrease as well as the change in the amplitude of the co2 cycles observed around 400 ka was most likely driven by physical processes possibly related to changes in antarctic sea ice extent surface water stratification and westerly winds position

constraint of the co2 rise by new atmospheric carbon isotopic measurements during the last deglaciation 1 the causes of the 80 ppmv increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide co2 during the last glacial interglacial climatic transition remain debated we analyzed the parallel evolution of co2 and its stable carbon isotopic ratio 13co2 in the european project for ice coring in antarctica epica dome c ice core to bring additional constraints agreeing well but largely improving the taylor dome ice core record of lower resolution our 13co2 record is characterized by a w shape with two negative 13co2 excursions of 0 5 during heinrich 1 and younger dryas events bracketing a positive 13co2 peak during the bolling allerod warm period the comparison with marine records and the outputs of two c cycle box models suggest that changes in southern ocean ventilation drove most of the co2 increase with additional contributions from marine productivity changes on the initial co2 rise and 13co2 decline and from rapid vegetation buildup during the co2 plateau of the bolling allerod

rain driven by receding ice sheets as a cause of past climate change 1 the younger dryas cold period which interrupted the transition from the last ice age to modern conditions in greenland is one of the most dramatic incidents of abrupt climate change reconstructed from paleoclimate proxy records changes in the atlantic ocean overturning circulation in response to freshwater fluxes from melting ice are frequently invoked to explain this and other past climate changes here we propose an alternative mechanism in which the receding glacial ice sheets cause the atmospheric circulation to enter a regime with greater net precipitation in the north atlantic region this leads to a significant reduction in ocean overturning circulation causing an increase in sea ice extent and hence colder temperatures positive feedbacks associated with sea ice amplify the cooling we support the proposed mechanism with the results of a state of the art global climate model our results suggest that the atmospheric precipitation response to receding glacial ice sheets could have contributed to the younger dryas cooling as well as to other past climate changes involving the ocean overturning circulation

boron and magnesium isotopic composition of seawater the isotopic systems of boron and magnesium are increasingly being used as proxies for a number of environmental variables and processes the isotopic composition of seawater for both systems plays a central role in these studies and is an important interlaboratory standard given the long residence times of both elements 10 7 years it is commonly assumed that seawater is isotopically homogenous for these systems yet no systematic studies currently exist here we present the b and mg isotopic composition of 26 28 seawater samples from a number of ocean basins that encompass a significant range in salinity 32 to 38 psu temperature 0 3 to 25 9c and water depth 0 to 1240 m we find no significant or systematic variation for either system in accordance with their long residence times we recommend that the mean values we report 11 b 39 61 0 04 2 s e n 28 25 mg 0 43 0 01 2 s e n 26 26 mg 0 82 0 01 2 s e n 26 be used in future studies involving mg and b isotopes copyright 2010 by the american geophysical union

eastern tropical pacific hydrologic changes during the past 27 000 years from d h ratios in alkenones 1 the tropical pacific plays a central role in the climate system by providing large diabatic heating that drives the global atmospheric circulation quantifying the role of the tropics in late pleistocene climate change has been hampered by the paucity of paleoclimate records from this region and the lack of realistic transient climate model simulations covering this period here we present records of hydrogen isotope ratios dd of alkenones from the panama basin off the colombian coast that document hydrologic changes in equatorial south america and the eastern tropical pacific over the past 27 000 years a and the past 3 centuries in detail comparison of alkenone dd values with instrumental records of precipitation over the past 100 a suggests that dd can be used as a hydrologic proxy on long timescales our records indicate reduced rainfall during the last glacial period that can be explained by a southward shift of the mean position of the intertropical convergence zone and an associated reduction of pacific moisture transport into colombia precipitation increases at 17 ka in concert with sea surface temperature sst cooling in the north atlantic and the eastern tropical pacific a regional coupled model forced by negative sst anomalies in the caribbean simulates an intensification of northeasterly trade winds across central america increased evaporative cooling and a band of increased rainfall in the northeastern tropical pacific these results are consistent with the alkenone sst and dd reconstructions that suggest increasing precipitation and sst cooling at the time of heinrich event 1

radiocarbon and stable isotope constraints on last glacial maximum and younger dryas ventilation in the western north atlantic 1 foraminiferal abundance 14c ventilation ages and stable isotope ratios in cores from high deposition rate locations in the western subtropical north atlantic are used to infer changes in ocean and climate during the younger dryas yd and last glacial maximum lgm the 18o of the surface dwelling planktonic foram globigerinoides ruber records the present day decrease in surface temperature sst of 4 c from gulf stream waters to the northeastern bermuda rise if during the lgm the modern 18o salinity relationship was maintained this sst contrast was reduced to 2 c with lgm to interglacial 18o changes of at least 2 2 ssts in the western subtropical gyre may have been as much as 5 c colder above 2 3 km glacial 13c was higher than today consistent with nutrient depleted younger bottom waters as identified previously below that 13c decreased continually to 0 5 about equal to the lowest lgm 13c in the north pacific ocean seven pairs of benthic and planktonic foraminiferal 14c dates from cores 2 5 km deep differ by 1100 340 years with a maximum apparent ventilation age of 1500 years at 4250 m and at 4700 m apparent ventilation ages are presently unavailable for the lgm 2 5 km because of problems with reworking on the continental slope when sea level was low because lgm 13c is about the same in the deep north atlantic and the deep north pacific and because the oldest apparent ventilation ages in the lgm north atlantic are the same as the north pacific today it is possible that the same water mass probably of southern origin flowed deep within each basin during the lgm very early in the yd dated here at 11 25 0 25 n 10 conventional 14c kyr bp equal to 12 9 calendar kyr bp apparent ventilation ages 2 3 km water depth were about the same as north atlantic deep water today below 2 3 km four yd pairs average 1030 400 years the oldest apparent ventilation age for the yd is 1600 years at 4250 m this strong contrast in ventilation which indicates a front between water masses of very different origin is similar to glacial profiles of nutrient like proxies this suggests that the lgm and yd modes of ocean circulation were the same

glacial water mass geometry and the distribution of δ13c of σco2 in the western atlantic ocean 1 oxygen and carbon isotopic data were produced on the benthic foraminiferal taxa cibicidoides and planulina from 25 new piston cores gravity cores and multicores from the brazil margin the cores span water depths from about 400 to 3000 m and intersect the major water masses in this region these new data fill a critical gap in the south atlantic ocean and provide the motivation for updating the classic glacial western atlantic 13c transect of duplessy et al 1988 the distribution of 13c of co2 requires the presence of three distinct water masses in the glacial atlantic ocean a shallow 1000 m southern source water mass with an end member 13c value of about 0 3 0 5 vpdb a middepth 1500 m northern source water mass with an end member value of about 1 5 and a deep 2000 m southern source water with an end member value of less than 0 2 and perhaps as low as the 0 9 values observed in the south atlantic sector of the southern ocean ninnemann and charles 2002 the origins of the water masses are supported by the meridional gradients in benthic foraminiferal 18o a revised glacial section of deep water 13c documents the positions and gradients among these end member intermediate and deep water masses the large property gradients in the presence of strong vertical mixing can only be maintained by a vigorous overturning circulation

high resolution record of northern hemisphere climate extending into the last interglacial period high resolution record of northern hemisphere climate extending into the last interglacial period

river channel lateral mobility metrics time scales and controls 1 alluvial river channels are intrinsically mobile we mapped channel planform extent in a series of experiments to measure instantaneous rates of channel motion loss of planform overlap with the original positions of the channels and reworking of the fluvial surface over which the channels moved these experiments comprise two aggrading deltas one subsiding delta that underwent cyclical base level changes and one braided channel system that was seeded with vegetation we find that the amounts of channel planform overlap and remaining unreworked fluvial surface area both decay exponentially with time and that these metrics and the instantaneously measured rates of channel motion scale predictably with one another in spite of the different time scales of the processes they record rates of channel planform change increase with increasing sediment flux and bed and planform irregularity and decrease with the establishment of riparian vegetation aggradation does not noticeably affect channel mobility but induces avulsions that allow the channels to more rapidly rework the fluvial surface additional findings include that 1 sediment flux in the braided experiment equals its rate of bar migration 2 channel widths are normally distributed with time and 3 we can use our channel mobility metrics to connect surface processes with the resultant fluvial stratigraphy

carbon dioxide effects of antarctic stratification north atlantic intermediate water formation and subantarctic nutrient drawdown during the last ice age diagnosis and synthesis in a geochemical box model in a box model synthesis of southern ocean and north atlantic mechanisms for lowering co2 during ice ages the co2 changes are parsed into their component geochemical causes including the soft tissue pump the carbonate pump and whole ocean alkalinity when the mechanisms are applied together their interactions greatly modify the net co2 change combining the antarctic mechanisms stratification nutrient drawdown and sea ice cover within bounds set by observations decreases co2 by no more than 36 ppm a drawdown that could be caused by any one of these mechanisms in isolation however these antarctic changes reverse the co2 effect of the observed ice age shoaling of north atlantic overturning in isolation the shoaling raises co2 by 16 ppm but alongside the antarctic changes it lowers co2 by an additional 13 ppm a 29 ppm synergy the total co2 decrease does not reach 80 ppm partly because antarctic stratification antarctic sea ice cover and the shoaling of north atlantic overturning all strengthen the sequestration of alkalinity in the deepest ocean which increases co2 both by itself and by decreasing whole ocean alkalinity increased nutrient consumption in the sub antarctic causes as much as an additional 35 ppm co2 decrease interacting minimally with the other changes with its inclusion the lowest ice age co2 levels are within reach these findings may bear on the two stepped co2 decrease of the last ice age

mineralogical and morphological properties of individual dust particles in ice cores from the tibetan plateau using a field emission scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive x ray spectrometer fesem eds individual insoluble dust particles in ice cores recovered from the northern dunde western murtagata and south eastern palong zangbo tibetan plateau were analysed in order to reveal the mineralogical and morphological characteristics of the analogue of long range transported asian dust the results reveal that the dust particles are mainly composed of quartz 17 36 number abundance clay 37 48 and feldspar 12 18 illite and chlorite are the dominant clay species while kaolinite is rarely observed for the three sites regional differences in the mineral assemblages are significant in particular the abundance of quartz chlorite and muscovite species reflecting the regional provenance of these dust particles and the climatic regime in their source areas oxide ratios in clays indicate different weathering strengths of the particles in their source regions with a higher k2o sio2 al2o3 in the western and northern tibetan plateau the individual particles have modes of 1 48 and 1 53 in the aspect ratio and circularity distribution respectively no significant relationship between aspect ratio and circularity was found quartz and feldspar particles have a narrow aspect ratio distribution muscovite particles have the coarsest grain size while chlorite particles have the finest

paleonutrient and productivity records from the subarctic north pacific for pleistocene glacial terminations i to v our study addresses fundamental questions of the mode and timing of orbital and millennial scale changes in the meridional overturning circulation moc of the subarctic north pacific particular concerns are the vertical mixing the present and past abundance of nutrients in surface waters despite strong stratification and the north pacific north atlantic seesaw of oscillations in sea surface temperature sst we do this by generating and interpreting multiple records for glacial terminations i v down two long piston cores one each from the western and eastern subarctic pacific chlorins and biogenic opal are proxies for surface water productivity delta 13 c of epibenthic foraminifera is a record of deepwater ventilation and the delta 13 c of n pachyderma sin is a tracer of nutrients in subsurface waters that extend up to the sea surface during times of vertical mixing the degree of mixing is traced by pairing sst and delta 18 o records of planktic surface and subsurface pycnocline dwellers tight age control is deduced from a suite of age calibrated 14 c plateau boundaries for termination i and benthic delta 18 o and geomagnetic events for the last 800 ka carbon 14 paleoreservoir ages record the ages of surface and deep waters to uncover short term changes in moc over termination i we have defined a standard sequence of short term productivity events for termination i also evident during terminations ii to v and subsequent interglacials over the last 450 ka the peak glacial regime of stable stratification and low productivity terminated together with the end of ice rafting and melting near 17 ka similar to 2000 years after the onset of termination i pulses of vertical mixing and incursion of warm surface waters from the subtropics followed convected young water masses finally penetrated down to 3600 m water depth at 17 0 to less than 14 5 ka significantly improving bottom water ventilation through the late deglacial and earliest interglacial mixing with upwelled nutrients from the pycnocline induced short term maxima in algal production of chlorins and biogenic opal near 17 15 and 15 12 ka respectively deglacial meltwater incursions in the aleutian current and silica input from north american rivers also promoted east pacific productivity after 15 5 ka productivity decreased during the late deglacial and early interglacial coeval with an exceptional peak in caco 3 preservation caused by both low organic flux and well ventilated deepwater subsequently low salinity and cool surface waters and in turn stratification were gradually restored a second opal dominated productivity maximum marked the ends of interglacials the deglacial pulses of vertical mixing around 17 11 ka imply an important contribution of the north pacific to the coeval release of oceanic co 2 into the atmosphere and support the east west seesaw model of climate change

shortcomings of the isolated abyssal reservoir model for deglacial radiocarbon changes in the mid depth indo pacific ocean severely negative 14c anomalies from the mid depth pacific and the arabian sea have been taken as support for the hypothesized deglacial release of a previously isolated extremely 14c deplete deep ocean carbon reservoir we report box model simulations that cast doubt on both the existence of the hypothesized deep reservoir and its ability to explain the mid depth 14c anomalies first the degree of ice age isolation needed to substantially reduce the deep 14c of the deep reservoir causes anoxia and the trapping of alkalinity from caco3 dissolution the latter increasing atmospheric co2 second even with a completely 14c free deep reservoir achieving the mid depth 14c anomalies of observed duration requires ad hoc stifling of aspects of deep circulation to prevent rapid dissipation of the anomalous 14c free carbon to the rest of the ocean and the atmosphere we suggest that the mid depth anomalies do not record basin scale 14c changes but are instead local phenomena

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

is pore water oxygen content decoupled from productivity on the california margin trace element results from ocean drilling program hole 1017e san lucia slope california 1 trace element evidence from the california margin ocean drilling program hole 1017e shows significant changes in sediment redox chemistry at intermediate water depths over the last 60 kyr the influence of export production on intermediate water oxygen content can be distinguished from lateral ventilation through comparisons among proxies representing export production flux percent corg and sediment surface i br and pore water mo ag cd re and u oxygenation proxies sulfate reduction within the uppermost sediment column occurred during late quaternary interstadials and the holocene indicating reduced intermediate water ventilation however sulfate reduction was most intense during major interstadials when productivity was enhanced decoupling between export production and pore water oxygen content is demonstrated during deglaciation when the sediment pore water oxygen content increases without a corresponding reduction in export productivity thus both export production and intermediate water ventilation play a role in oxygen minimum zone processes on the california margin

direct ventilation of the north pacific did not reach the deep ocean during the last deglaciation 1 despite its tremendous size the deep north pacific has received relatively little attention by paleoceanographers it was recently suggested that the deep north pacific was directly ventilated by dense waters formed in the subarctic pacific during heinrich stadial 1 hs1 of the early deglaciation here we present new redox sensitive trace metal data from a sediment core at 2393 m in the subarctic pacific in comparison with previously published data from elsewhere in the region the combined picture shows no sign of ventilation during the early deglaciation in any available core from water depths of 2393 m and deeper while the deepest core to display clear signs of enhanced ventilation during hs1 was raised from 1366 m water depth thus it appears likely that although the north pacific was well ventilated to intermediate depths during hs1 the deep ocean did not receive a significant input of dense waters from a local source but remained isolated from the surface waters above