evolution of the eastern volcanic ridge of the canary islands based on new kar data the results of 64 new k ar age determinations together with 32 previously published ages show that after a period of erosion of the basal complex miocene volcanic activity started around 20 ma in fuerteventura and 15 ma in lanzarote forming a tabular succession of basaltic lavas and pyroclastics with a few salic dykes and plugs this series includes five separate volcanic edifices each one with its own eruptive history in fuerteventura several miocene eruptive cycles have been identified in the central edifice one around 20 17 ma followed by two others centred around 15 and 13 ma in the southern edifice the maximum of activity took place around 16 14 ma whereas in the northern one the main activity occurred between 14 and 12 ma in lanzarote a first cycle of activity took place in the southern edifice between 15 5 and 14 1 ma followed by another between 13 6 and 12 3 ma in the northern edifice three pulses occurred 10 2 8 3 6 6 5 3 and 3 9 3 8 ma an important temporal gap greater in fuerteventura than in lanzarote separates series i from the plio quaternary series ii iii and iv formed by multi vent basaltic emissions in fuerteventura the following eruptive cycles have been identified 5 2 9 2 4 1 8 1 7 0 8 0 4 and 0 1 ma in lanzarote the activity was fairly continuous from 2 7 ma to historic times with a maximum in the lower pleistocene eruptive rates in the series i edifices were on the average 0 1 0 01 km3 ka comparable but slightly smaller than in similar edifices in tenerife and la gomera but much lower than in gran canaria average post miocene eruptive rates were about 0 013 0 027 km3 ka in lanzarote and 0 003 0 007 km3 ka in fuerteventura all these volcanic edifices show a similar general sequence fissural eruptions erosion multi vent volcanism repeated at different periods in different parts of the eastern islands of the canaries the model of growth of the series i edifices is comparable to those in tenerife and la gomera long periods of activity sometimes greater than 6 m y with pulses separated by gaps however salic and intermediate differentiates frequent in tenerife and la gomera are very scarce in these islands the fuerteventura lanzarote ridge shows a decrease in volcanic activity with time and also a certain ssw nne polarity in the temporal development of volcanism

gulf stream variability during marine isotope stage 3 we have studied ocean drilling program site 1060 on the blake outer ridge which lies beneath the gulf stream we focus on marine isotope stage 3 60 25 thousand years before present ka sea surface temperatures ssts inferred both from foraminiferal fauna and alkenone ratios as well as counts of iceberg melt out debris and benthic stable isotope analyses enable our record to be interpreted in terms of regional hydrographic changes as well as changing thermohaline circulation thc the observed sst record is consistent with the air temperature record from the greenland ice cores however site 1060 exhibits important differences in detail compared with the ice core record and when compared to other sites within the north atlantic significant longitudinal differences emerge at site 1060 in the western atlantic all greenland stadials gs whether associated with heinrich events hes or not show a similar small amplitude of cooling mean faunal based sstaug during gs is only 1 5 c colder than during greenland interstadials gis in addition during gs the coldest ssts are limited to apparently brief events this is in contrast to several eastern atlantic sites where he stadials exhibit coolings that are enhanced by 2 c compared to other gs and where cold conditions are not restricted to cold pulses but cover 2 ka long intervals furthermore site 1060 ssts remained warm right through each interstadial in contrast to the sustained and uniform cooling trend through interstadials that is consistently observed in greenland indicated by measurements of 18o in ice

detrital carbonate peaks on the labrador shelf a 13 7 ka template for freshwater forcing from the hudson strait outlet of the laurentide ice sheet into the subpolar gyre abstract the laurentide ice sheet lis was a large dynamic ice sheet in the early holocene the glacial events through hudson strait leading to its eventual demise are recorded in the well dated labrador shelf core md99 2236 from the cartwright saddle we develop a detailed history of the timing of ice sheet discharge events from the hudson strait outlet of the lis during the holocene using high resolution detrital carbonate ice rafted detritus ird 18o and sediment color data eight detrital carbonate peaks dcps associated with ird peaks and light oxygen isotope events punctuate the md99 2236 record between 11 5 and 8 0 ka we use the stratigraphy of the dcps developed from md99 2236 to select the appropriate r to calibrate the ages of recorded glacial events in hudson bay and hudson strait such that they match the dcps in md99 2236 we associate the eight dcps with h0 gold cove advance noble inlet advance initial retreat of the hudson strait ice stream hsis from hudson strait opening of the tyrrell sea and drainage of glacial lakes agassiz and ojibway the opening of foxe channel and retreat of glacial ice from foxe basin are represented by a shoulder in the carbonate data r of 350 years applied to the radiocarbon ages constraining glacial events h0 through the opening of the tyrell sea provided the best match with the md99 2236 dcps r values and ages from the literature are used for the younger events a very close age match was achieved between the 8 2 ka cold event in the greenland ice cores dcp7 8 15 ka bp and the drainage of glacial lakes agassiz and ojibway our stratigraphic comparison between the dcps in md99 2236 and the calibrated ages of hudson strait bay deglacial events shows that the retreat of the hsis the opening of the tyrell sea and the catastrophic drainage of glacial lakes agassiz and ojibway at 8 2 ka are separate events that have been combined in previous estimates of the timing of the 8 2 ka event from marine records sw iceland shelf core md99 2256 documents freshwater entrainment into the subpolar gyre from the hudson strait outlet via the labrador north atlantic and irminger currents the timing of freshwater release from the lis hudson strait outlet in md99 2236 matches evidence for freshwater forcing and lis icebergs carrying foreign minerals to the sw iceland shelf between 11 5 and 8 2 ka the congruency of these records supports the conclusion of the entrainment of freshwater from the retreat of the lis through hudson strait into the subpolar gyre and provides specific time periods when pulses of lis freshwater were present to influence climate

potential links between surging ice sheets circulation changes and the dansgaard oeschger cycles in the irminger sea 60 18 kyr surface and deepwater paleoclimate records in irminger sea core so82 5 59on 31 ow and icelandic sea core ps2644 68on 22ow exhibit large fluctuations in thermohaline circulation thc from 60 to 18 calendar kyr b p with a dominant periodicity of 1460 years from 46 to 22 calendar kyr b p matching the dansgaard oeschger d o cycles in the greenland ice sheet project 2 gisp2 temperature record grootes and tuiver 1997 during interstadials summer sea surface temperatures sstsu in the irminger sea averaged to 8oc and sea surface salinities sss averaged to 36 5 recording a strong irminger current and atlantic thc during stadials sstsu dropped to 2o 4oc in phase with sss drops by 1 2 they reveal major meltwater injections along with the east greenland current which turned off the north atlantic deepwater convection and hence the heat advection to the north in harmony with various ocean circulation and ice models on the basis of the ird composition icebergs came from iceland east greenland and perhaps svalbard and other northern ice sheets however the southward drifting icebergs were initially jammed in the denmark strait reaching the irminger sea only with a lag of 155 195 years we also conclude that the abrupt stadial terminations the d o warming events were tied to iceberg melt via abundant seasonal sea ice and brine water formation in the meltwater covered northwestern north atlantic in the 1 1460 year frequency band benthic 15 80 brine water spikes led the temperature maxima above greenland and in the irminger sea by as little as 95 years thus abundant brine formation which was induced by seasonal freezing of large parts of the northwestern atlantic may have finally entrained a current of warm surface water from the subtropics and thereby triggered the sudden reactivation of the thc in summary the internal dynamics of the east greenland ice sheet may have formed the ultimate pacemaker of d o cycles

tropical atlantic coral oxygen isotopes glacial interglacial sea surface temperatures and climate change abstract we have generated a detailed oxygen isotope time series from the fossil coral reefs from offshore barbados the barbados coral based record is a unique paleoceanographic data set with an equivalent sedimentation rate in excess of 600 cm kyr where not only is the annual signal uniquely preserved but seasonality as well oxygen isotope values during the late glacial and lgm 16 20 14c kyrs 19 24 calendar kyrs are 2 3 heavier than corresponding living specimens and indicate a regional cooling on the order of 4 5 c there is also an isotopic expression of the bolling pre boreal climate oscillation with values reflecting a cooling during the younger dryas seasonality a key diagnostic of the state of the climate system remained the same or slightly less than present and indicates that the observed coolings were a change in the mean state of the western tropical atlantic pan tropic cooling during the last glaciation is best explained by a change in the radiative balance of the tropics variable tropical sea surface temperatures during climate oscillations such as the younger dryas challenge the paradigm that climate change only cascades from variations in north atlantic deep water production

constraints on the magnitude and patterns of ocean cooling at the last glacial maximum observation based reconstructions of sea surface temperature from relatively stable periods in the past such as the last glacial maximum represent an important means of constraining climate sensitivity and evaluating model simulations1 the first quantitative global reconstruction of sea surface temperatures during the last glacial maximum was developed by the climate long range investigation mapping and prediction climap project in the 1970s and 1980s refs 2 3 since that time several shortcomings of that earlier effort have become apparent4 here we present an updated synthesis of sea surface temperatures during the last glacial maximum rigorously defined as the period between 23 and 19 thousand years before present from the multiproxy approach for the reconstruction of the glacial ocean surface margo project5 we integrate microfossil and geochemical reconstructions of surface temperatures and include assessments of the reliability of individual records our reconstruction reveals the presence of large longitudinal gradients in sea surface temperature in all of the ocean basins in contrast to the simulations of the last glacial maximum climate available at present6 7

moisture supply for northern ice sheet growth during the last glacial maximum during the last ice age the barents sea ice sheet began to grow 22 kyr ago1 only 8 kyr before it began to disintegrate2 this implies that the ice must have grown very rapidly from the coast to the edge of the continental shelf such rapid growth of a large ice sheet requires significant amounts of moisture3 but the origin of this moisture has been unclear particularly as the climap climate reconstruction suggests4 5 that the greenland iceland norwegian gin seas were perennially ice covered during this period here we present data from deep sea sediment cores from the fram strait which suggest that relatively warm water from the north atlantic ocean was advected into the gin seas in two short term events 27 22 5 and 19 5 14 5 kyr ago we suggest that the resulting seasonally ice free waters were an important regional moisture source for the barents sea ice sheet and that the gin seas played a much more active role in climate during the last glaciation than has previously been supposed

orbital forcing of dust supply to the north canary basin over the last 250kyr abstract the canary basin lies in a region of strong interaction between the atmospheric and ocean circulation systems trade winds drive seasonal coastal upwelling and dust storm outbreaks from the neighbouring sahara desert are the major source of terrigenous sediment to investigate the forcing mechanisms for dust input and wind strength in the north canary basin the temporal pattern of variability of sedimentological and geochemical proxy records has been analysed in two sediment cores between latitudes 30 30 n and 31 40 n spectral analysis of the dust proxy records indicates that insolation changes related to eccentricity and precession are the main periods of temporal variation in the record si al and grain size of the terrigenous fraction show an increase in glacial interglacial transitions while al concentration and fe al ratio are both in phase with minima in the precessional index hence the results obtained show that the wind strength was intensified at terminations at times of maxima of northern hemisphere seasonal insolation when the african monsoon was enhanced the north canary basin also received higher dust input this result suggests that the moisture brought by the monsoon may have increased the availability of dust in the source region

enhanced carbon dioxide outgassing from the eastern equatorial atlantic during the last glacial biological productivity and carbon export in the equatorial atlantic are thought to have been dramatically higher during the last glacial period than during the holocene here we reconstruct the ph and co2 content of surface waters from the eastern equatorial atlantic ocean over the past 30 k y using the boron isotope composition of globigerinoides ruber a mixed layer dwelling planktic foraminifera our new record combined with previously published data indicates that during the last glacial in contrast to today a strong west to east gradient existed in the extent of air sea equilibrium with respect to pco2 pco2 with the eastern equatorial atlantic acting as a significant source of co2 100 atm while the western atlantic remained close to equilibrium 25 atm this pattern suggests that a fivefold increase in the upwelling rate of deeper waters drove increased atlantic productivity and large scale regional cooling during the last glacial but the higher than modern pco2 in the east indicates that export production did not keep up with enhanced upwelling of nutrients however the downstream decline of pco2 provides evidence that the unused nutrients from the east were eventually used for biologic carbon export thereby effectively negating the impact of changes in upwelling on atmospheric co2 levels our findings indicate that the equatorial atlantic exerted a minimal role in contributing to lower glacial age atmospheric co2

dynamics of atlantic water advection to the norwegian greenland sea a time slice record of carbonate distribution in the last 300 ky abstract short term variability in volume and configuration of atlantic water advection to the norwegian greenland sea ngs has recently been identified as a new and significant element for northern hemisphere glacial interglacial climatic fluctuations the amount of salt heat and moisture transferred by atlantic waters to the high arctic effectively influences northern hemisphere climates and is critical for the overall oceanic turnover rate in particular determining the extent and duration of atlantic water intrusions in the ngs is essential because of 1 its effect on the climate of the nordic continents and 2 its trigger function on the stability of the ice sheets with a weak inflows of atlantic water during glacials promoting an increase in ice volume by moisture supply to polar areas and b positive feed back mechanisms of atlantic water intrusions during ice sheet decay in this study the dynamics of surface water mass regimes in the ngs have been reconstructed for the past 300 ky by means of time slice compilations of calcium carbonate distribution and micropaleontologic proxies in addition carbonate preservation records are used to quantify deep water ventilation and production rates in contrast to the climap scenario but in accordance with many recent publications results of this study indicate that atlantic water advection was also a common feature during most glacial periods but varied strongly in volume and configuration significant modes recognized are 1 the full interglacial mode with a wide inflow of warm atlantic waters covering a broad area in the eastern sector of the ngs and extending far north combined with excellent carbonate preservation and very efficient deep water formation stages 1 and 5 5 1 2 the moderate interglacial mode with a rather small extension of atlantic waters along a narrow corridor in the southeastern sector of the ngs but still very efficient deep water exchange stages 9 isotopic events 7 5 7 3 7 1 5 3 and 5 1 3 pronounced cool phases during interglacials with only a very narrow inflow of atlantic waters into the southeastern ngs while the coastal areas off norway were still affected by iceberg drift substages 7 4 and 5 2 carbonate preservation records indicate ongoing deep water formation in the ngs 4 the normal glacial mode characterized by a variable but persistent inflow of cool temperate atlantic water lower stage 8 repetitively during stages 6 4 3 1 and 2 carbonate preservation records indicate ongoing deep water formation in the ngs 5 short glacial and deglacial periods characterized by episodic high inputs of ird evidenced by a wide coverage of diamicton deposition and strong carbonate dissolution e g episodically within stages 10 6 and 2 the 6 5 4 3 and 2 1 transitions some of these ngs diamicton layers correlate with heinrich layers in the north atlantic but generally ngs diamicton layers occur more frequently than heinrich layers the role of atlantic water influence during these events remains enigmatic but atlantic water influence is frequently found just above and below these sections a scenario with rapid ice sheet disintegration induced by atlantic water advection via increase of the thermal regime along the ice margin possibly triggered by small scale sea level rise might be envisaged more obviously the short term cessation of deep water formation in the ngs as evidenced by the dissolution spikes may be correlated with contemporaneous ventilation minima in the north atlantic

tropical climates at the last glacial maximum a new synthesis of terrestrial palaeoclimate data i vegetation lake levels and geochemistry palaeodata in synthesis form are needed as benchmarks for the palaeoclimate modelling intercomparison project pmip advances since the last synthesis of terrestrial palaeodata from the last glacial maximum lgm call for a new evaluation especially of data from the tropics here pollen plant macrofossil lake level noble gas from groundwater and delta 18 o from speleothems data are compiled for 18 2 ka c 14 32 degrees n 33 degrees s the reliability of the data was evaluated using explicit criteria and some types of data were re analysed using consistent methods in order to derive a set of mutually consistent palaeoclimate estimates of mean temperature of the coldest month mtco mean annual temperature mat plant available moisture pam and runoff p e cold month temperature mat anomalies from plant data range from 1 to 2 k near sea level in indonesia and the s pacific through 6 to 8 k at many high elevation sites to 8 to 15k in s china and the se usa mat anomalies from groundwater or speleothems seem more uniform 4 to 6 k but the data are as yet sparse a clear divergence between mat and cold month estimates from the same region is seen only in the se usa where cold air advection is expected to have enhanced cooling in winter regression of all cold month anomalies against site elevation yielded an estimated average cooling of 2 5 to 3 k at modern sea level increasing to approximate to 6 k by 3000m how ever neotropical sites showed larger than the average sea level cooling 5 to 6 k and a non significant elevation effect whereas w and s pacific sites showed much less sea level cooling 1 k and a stronger elevation effect these findings support the inference that tropical sea surface temperatures ssts were lower than the climap estimates but they limit the plausible average tropical sea surface cooling and they support the existence of climap like geographic patterns in sst anomalies trends of pam and lake levels indicate wet lgm conditions in the w usa and at the highest elevations with generally dry conditions elsewhere these results suggest a colder than present ocean surface producing a weaker hydrological cycle more arid continents and arguably steeper than present terrestrial lapse rates such linkages are supported by recent observations on freezing level height and tropical ssts moreover simulations of greenhouse and lgm climates point to several possible feedback processes by which low level temperature anomalies might be amplified aloft

planktonic foraminifera of the northern indian ocean distribution and preservation in surface sediments in the northern indian ocean planktonic foraminiferal tests accumulate in a wide variety of surface water environments and depositional settings this variability enables us to isolate the effects that surface water ecology and differential dissolution have on the distribution of planktonic foraminifera from 251 geographically widespread surface sediment samples foraminiferal abundance varies from 0 to 104 whole foraminifera in the greater than 150 m fraction per gram dry sediment values 10 characterize the three deep basins of the equatorial indian ocean and the western bay of bengal foraminiferal tests are most abundant on carbonate covered ninety east and carlsberg ridges absolute abundance patterns are mainly controlled by non ecological processes variations in dissolution resistant species rsp with water depth reveal that the foraminiferal lysocline fl varies regionally the fl is deepest 3 800 m in the equatorial region rises abruptly to 3 300 m in the arabian sea and varies from 2 600 m to near 2 000 m moving northward in the bay of bengal deep samples with anomalously low rsp 30 suggest redeposition systematic geographic and depth related variation is observed for the 17 most abundant foraminiferal species dissolution resistant species g menardii g tumida g dutertrei p obliquiloculata generally exhibit a rapid and continuous increase in relative abundance at and below the fl susceptible species g ruber g bulloides g glutinata for example exhibit a rapid and continuous decrease in relative abundance at and below the fl moderately susceptible species g conglobatus g aequilateralis g conglomerata for example rapidly increase in abundance at the fl and systematically decrease with depth below the fl principal components analysis pca of faunal data from minimally dissolved 30 rsp samples reveals important ecologically related species intercorrelations the major biogeographic gradient is the negative covarying relationship between ag bulloides g glutinata species pair and a grouping ofg sacculifer g conglobatus g aequilateralis andg ruber pca of all samples demonstrates how differential dissolution alters this and other species relationships species groupings that incorporateg ruber g menardii andg dutertrei are particularly affected by dissolution comparison of average faunal data from minimally dissolved samples in the northern indian ocean with similar samples from other tropical regions suggests varying environmental factors produce distinct faunas within the tropical ocean for example g bulloides g falconensis andg hexagona are significantly more abundant in northern indian ocean surface sediments while such species asg ruber g sacculifer g dutertrei andp obliquiloculata dominate in other tropical regions

pleistocene and holocene distribution of the radiolarian amphimelissa setosa cleve in the north pacific and north atlantic evidence for water mass movement abstract the radiolarian amphimelissa setosa is one of the prominent species of the pleistocene radiolarian assemblages in the sea of okhotsk below the marine isotope stage mis boundary 5 4 and it represents one of the most abundant radiolarian species in holocene and modern environments of the nordic seas we studied the a setosa distribution in six cores from the sea of okhotsk and established morphometric measurements on a setosa specimens from two cores of the sea of okhotsk and one core from the labrador sea we further compared our data with other available studies from the subarctic pacific the labrador sea the north atlantic the norwegian sea and the iceland greenland seas in order to discuss the possible settling of the species from the north pacific via the arctic ocean into the iceland greenland seas a setosa exhibits a stable abundant population in the sea of okhotsk during most of the last ca 0 7 m y and might repeatedly extend its population into the north atlantic through the arctic ocean during the pleistocene interglacial optima the species declines from the sea of okhotsk and from the subarctic pacific at the end of mis 5 its final documented settling into the north atlantic is during mis 5 when a setosa appears in low numbers in sediments of the labrador sea however reaching significant percentages at the boundary of mis 5 4 based on the available information we propose that a setosa could migrate from the north pacific into the arctic ocean during the interglacial optimum mis 5e and then through the channels of the canadian arctic archipelago into the baffin bay and labrador sea a further migration step of a setosa occurs at the boundary of mis 5 4 when a setosa migrated from the labrador sea into the north atlantic probably related to a southward expansion of cold waters at the end of the mis 5 during the warming at termination i a setosa moved from the north atlantic into the nordic seas the abundant occurrence of a setosa in sediments south of iceland the norwegian and north seas within the younger dryas period points to a marked cooling and a southward movement of polar water masses restricted to this time interval

productivity and paleoceanographic implications on the tore seamount iberian margin during the last 225 kyr foraminiferal evidence foraminifera counts and climatic assemblages from the tore seamount are used to approach the glacial and interglacial changes in temperature and productivity on the iberian margin over the last 225 kyr chronostratigraphy is based on globigerinoides ruber and globigerina bulloides oxygen isotopes and supported by foraminifera and carbonate stadial fluctuations foraminifera indicate cooling from late interglacial stage 5 to the beginning of termination i ti neogloboquadnna pachyderma s reflects cold conditions during glacial stages 4 2 in contrast glacial stage 6 is dominated by warmer n pachyderma d and dutertrei and a restricted arctic assemblage past sea surface temperatures confirm the general cooling reaching 4 3 c simmax 28 during stage 2 multiple productivity proxies such as organic carbon productivity related foraminifera and 13c constrain the changes observed a productivity increase occurs after interglacial stage 5 enhanced from late glacial stage 3 to ti present day satellite detected phytoplankton plumes off portugal would have accounted in the past glacial stages for the general productivity increase over the tore on top of this welldefined peaks of organic carbon and productivity related foraminifera correspond with heinrich events 1 4

hotspot volcanism close to a passive continental margin the canary islands the canarian archipelago is a group of volcanic islands on a slow moving oceanic plate close to a continental margin the origins of the archipelago are controversial a hotspot or mantle plume a zone of lithospheric deformation a region of compressional block faulting or a rupture propagating westwards from the active atlas mountains fold belt have been proposed by different authors however comparison of the canarian archipelago with the prototypical hotspot related island group the hawaiian archipelago reveals that the differences between the two are not as great as had previously been supposed on the basis of older data quaternary igneous activity in the canaries is concentrated at the western end of the archipelago close to the present day location of the inferred hotspot this is the same relationship as seen in the hawaiian and cape verde islands the latter archipelago associated with a well defined but slow moving mantle plume shows anomalies in a plot of island age against distance which are comparable to those seen in the canary islands these anomalies cannot therefore be used to argue against a hotspot origin for the canaries individual islands in both archipelagoes are characterized by initial rapid growth the shield building stages of activity followed by a period of quiescence and deep erosion erosion gap which in turn is followed by a post erosional stage of activity the absence of post shield stage subsidence in the canaries is in marked contrast with the major subsidence experienced by the hawaiian islands but is comparable with the lack of subsidence evident in other island groups at slow moving hotspots such as the cape verdes comparison of the structure and structural evolution of the canary islands with other oceanic islands such as hawaii and reunion reveals many similarities these include the development of triple mercedes star rift zones and the occurrence of giant lateral collapses on the flanks of these rift zones the apparent absence of these features in the post erosional islands may in part be a result of their greater age and deeper erosion which has removed much of the evidence for their early volcanic architecture we conclude that the many similarities between the canary islands and island groups whose hotspot origins are undisputed show that the canaries have been produced in the same way

paleo sea surface temperature calculations in the equatorial east atlantic from mg ca ratios in planktic foraminifera a comparison to sea surface temperature estimates from u37k oxygen isotopes and foraminiferal transfer function we present two 270 kyr paleo sea surface temperature sst records from the equatorial divergence and the south equatorial current derived from mg ca ratios in the planktic foraminifer globigerinoides sacculifer the present study suggests that the magnesium signature of g sacculifer provides a seasonal sst estimate from the upper 50 m of the water column generated during upwelling in austral low latitude fall winter common to both down core records is a glacial interglacial amplitude of 3 3 5 c for the last climatic changes and lower holocene and glacial oxygen isotope stage 2 temperatures compared with interglacial stage 5 5 and glacial stage 6 temperatures respectively the comparison to published sst estimates from alkenones oxygen isotopes and foraminiferal transfer function from the same core material pinpoints discrepancies and conformities between methods

sea ice cover sea surface salinity and halo thermocline structure of the northwest north atlantic modern versus full glacial conditions abstract seasonal sea ice develops along the eastern continental margins in the northern north atlantic where freshwater and or meltwater outflow are responsible for relatively low salinity in surface waters and very pronounced water mass stratification sea ice constitutes a major parameter in the marine ecosystem since the duration and extent of its seasonal spreading constrain the plankton distribution and the related microfossil assemblages on the sea floor organic walled dinoflagellate cysts that are highly resistant to dissolution were recovered from surface sediments of the northern north atlantic and used to develop transfer functions best analogue method for the reconstruction of the seasonal spreading and duration of sea ice cover in addition to salinity and temperature of the warmest month of the year application of the best analogue approach to cores from the labrador sea reveals large variations in sea ice cover and sea surface conditions throughout the last glacial stage and during the early holocene isotopic analyses in epipelagic and mesopelagic planktonic foraminifers also suggest important changes in salinity and temperature gradients between the surface and sub surface water masses specific study of the last glacial maximum lgm time slice 16 20 ka on a 14 c time scale in the northwestern north atlantic shows much more extensive sea ice than at present with perennial sea ice lying along the continental margins of eastern canada seasonal spreading of the cover of sea ice offshore was accompanied by large seasonal contrasts in temperature with very cold winters but relatively warm summers a pattern linked to strong stratification between a buoyant low saline surface layer having a low thermal inertia and the underlying intermediate oceanic waters

alkenones and multiproxy strategies in paleoceanographic studies 1 we assess multiproxy strategies involving alkenone based and other paleoceanographic indicators in an effort to define uncertainties and to advance understanding of past oceanic and climatic changes looking to the future we recommend a parallel strategy of applying proxies to the geologic record while continuously seeking refinements in methods and understanding of mechanisms that control each proxy a multiproxy strategy increases confidence in results and provides oceanographic context for more effective interpretation of processes a combination of proxies allows derivation of additional properties such as upper ocean paleosalinity or paleo pco2 for a more complete view of the oceanographic and climate mechanisms involved in changing earth s environment

last glacial sea surface temperatures and sea ice extent in the southern ocean atlantic indian sector a multiproxy approach 1 on the basis of the quantitative study of diatom radiolarian and planktic foraminiferal assemblages we estimated summer sea surface temperature ssst and sea ice extent at 50 sediment core localities in the atlantic and western indian sector of the southern ocean to reconstruct the last glacial environment at the glamap 18 to 15 ka equal to 21 500 to 18 000 calendar cal years bp and epilog 19 5 to 16 0 ka equal to 23 000 to 19 000 cal years bp time slices stratigraphic identification of the time slices was accomplished by a combination of ams 14c measurements benthic isotope and siliceous microfossil abundance records while the ssst estimates reveal greater surface water cooling than reconstructed by climap 1981 reaching a maximum in the area of the present subantarctic zone the sea ice reconstruction indicates that climap overestimated the expansion of the antarctic sea ice field especially for austral summer during winter the sea ice field was expanded by 60 70 compared to the present last glacial summer sea surface isotherms indicate a northward shift of the zonal bands of the antarctic circumpolar current and a relative expansion of the cold water realm south of the subantarctic front by 5 in latitude this coincides with a northward displacement of the zone of enhanced biogenic silica deposition and iceberg occurrence as a result of northward expansion of antarctic cold waters and a relatively small displacement of the subtropical front thermal gradients were steepened during the last glacial in the area of the present subtropical front the northward displacement of antarctic cold waters and the related deflection of southern ocean waters along the eastern boundary of south america may have resulted in a weakened cold water route across the drake passage in contrast the transport of warm and salty surface water from the indian into the atlantic ocean via the warm water route was not blocked allowing continuous but reduced import of heat into the south atlantic

glacial and interglacial wind regimes over the eastern subtropical atlantic and north west africa analysis of aeolo marine dust deposits in the subtropical eastern atlantic enables the strength of the major wind patterns during the late quaternary to be evaluated and gives an insight into the climate of north africa

simmax a modern analog technique to deduce atlantic sea surface temperatures from planktonic foraminifera in deep sea sediments we present a data set of 738 planktonic foraminiferal species counts from sediment surface samples of the eastern north atlantic and the south atlantic between 87 n and 40 s 35 e and 60 w including published climate long range investigation mapping and prediction climap data these species counts are linked to levitus s 1982 modern water temperature data for the four caloric seasons four depth ranges 0 30 50 and 75 m and the combined means of those depth ranges the relation between planktonic foraminiferal assemblages and sea surface temperature sst data is estimated using the newly developed simmax technique which is an acronym for a modern analog technique mat with a similarity index based on 1 the scalar product of the normalized faunal percentages and 2 a weighting procedure of the modern analog s ssts according to the inverse geographical distances of the most similar samples compared to the classical climap transfer technique and conventional mat techniques simmax provides a more confident reconstruction of paleo ssts correlation coefficient is 0 994 for the caloric winter and 0 993 for caloric summer the standard deviation of the residuals is 0 90 c for caloric winter and 0 96 c for caloric summer at 0 m water depth the sst estimates reach optimum stability standard deviation of the residuals is 0 88 c at the average 0 to 75 m water depth our extensive database provides sst estimates over a range of 1 4 to 27 2 c for caloric winter and 0 4 to 28 6 c for caloric summer allowing sst estimates which are especially valuable for the high latitude atlantic during glacial times an electronic supplement of this material may be obtained on adiskette or anonymous ftp from kosmos agu org login toagu s ftp account using anonymous as the username and guestas the password go to the right directory by typing cd append typels to see what files are available type get and the name of the file toget it finally type exit to leave the system paper 95pa01743 simmax a modern analog technique to deduce atlantic sea surfacetemperatures from planktonic foraminifera in deep sea sediments uwepflaumann josette duprat claude pujol and laurent d labeyrie diskette may be ordered from american geophysical union 2000florida avenue n w washington dc 20009 payment mustaccompany order

quaternary palaeoclimates in the eastern canary islands abstract in the eastern canary islands aeolian formations interbedded with palaeosols have been studies the sequences cover the last 40 ka as evidenced by one 14 c accelerator analysis and several classical radiocarbon dates as in the sahara at least two wet episodes characterize isotopic stage 3 a short pedogenesis corresponds to the first deglaciation step at 15 ka after a new aeolian episode the holocene wet phase begins at around 10 ka the aeolian sedimentation is of saharian dust in particular during the stage 3 dry episode s u th and osl dating are current

the plio quaternary volcanic evolution of gran canaria based on new k ar ages and magnetostratigraphy the combined use of radiometric dating 51 new unspiked k ar ages magnetostratigraphy and field geology establishes a new time framework for the last two stages of the volcanic evolution of gran canaria most of the dated samples have ages coherent with their stratigraphic positions and magnetic polarities our new set of data extends the end of the roque nublo rn group one of the main posterosive stages of gran canaria which started about 4 9 ma ago to ages as young as 2 87 ma this is about 0 7 ma younger than previously thought moreover the dating of samples collected in well defined stratigraphic sequences supports the contemporaneity of the early stages of the post roque nublo group and the vanishing activity of the roque nublo stratovolcano between 3 7 and 2 9 ma the multiple lateral collapses of the roque nublo stratovolcano occurred during this period between 3 5 and 3 1 ma which corresponds to a main period of volcanic quiescence after 2 9 ma the effusive activity propagated along a well defined nw se rift until about 1 5 ma shifting progressively from a rifting propagation to platform forming lavas thereafter the activity is very disperse and belongs to the brunhes period with most of it before 500 ka

millennial scale ice rafting events and hudson strait heinrich like events during the late pliocene and pleistocene a review abstract various types of abrupt millennial scale climate variability such as dansgaard oeschger and heinrich events characterized the last glacial period over the last decade a number of studies demonstrated that such millennial scale climate variability was not limited to the last glacial but inherent to quaternary climate here we review the occurrence and origin of millennial ice rafting events in the north atlantic during the late pliocene and pleistocene last 3 4 ma with a special focus on north atlantic hudson strait hs heinrich like events we show that heinrich layers 5 4 2 and 1 in marine sediment cores from across the north atlantic all bear the organic geochemical fingerprint of the hudson area using this framework and combining previously published results detailed investigations into the organic and inorganic chemistry of ice rafted debris ird found across the north atlantic demonstrate that prior to mis 16 650 ka ird in the north atlantic did not originate from the hudson area of northern canada the signature of this early ird is distinctly different compared to that of hs heinrich layers rather ice rafting events during the late pliocene and early pleistocene predominantly emanated from the calving of the greenland and fennoscandian ice sheets and possibly minor contributions from local ice streams from the north american and british ice sheets compared to north atlantic hs heinrich events these early pleistocene ird events had a limited impact on surface water characteristics in the north atlantic north atlantic hs heinrich like events first occurred during mis 16 at the same time the dominant frequency in silicate rich ird accumulation shifted from the obliquity 41 ka to a 100 ka frequency across the north atlantic iceberg survivability or a change in iceberg trajectory likely did not control this change in ird regime these results lend further support for the existing hypothesis that an increase in size thickness of the laurentide ice sheet controls the occurrence of north atlantic hs heinrich events favoring an internal dynamic mechanism for their occurrence

expansion of subarctic water masses in the north atlantic and pacific oceans and implications for mid pleistocene ice sheet growth 1 past surface ocean circulation changes associated with the mid pleistocene transition 0 9 0 6 ma were reconstructed in the northern north atlantic odp 983 and the northwest pacific odp 882 using proxies for subarctic subpolar water mass distributions c37 4 alkenone and sea surface temperature u37 both sites experienced a secular expansion of subarctic waters from 1 15 ma spanning both glacial and interglacial intervals after 0 9 ma low c37 4 at site 983 records a northward retreat of subarctic waters during interglacials in the atlantic while continued high glacial c37 4 indicate extensive subarctic waters during glacial maxima associated with the development of the larger late pleistocene ice sheets in contrast a secular decline in c37 4 occurred at site 882 from 0 9 to 0 5 ma marking a more gradual retreat of subarctic conditions in the pacific it is proposed that the expansion of subarctic waters between 1 15 and 0 9 ma exerted negative feedbacks to the moisture supply to the ice sheet source regions and may account for the apparent delayed ice sheet response to atmosphere ocean circulation changes associated with the mid pleistocene transition that began as early as 1 2 ma

incorrect when uncorrected reconstructing vegetation history using n alkane biomarkers in loess paleosol sequences a case study from the saxonian loess region germany abstract this study aims at contributing to the reconstruction of the paleoenvironment of the saxonian loess region by investigating sedimentary n alkanes as plant leaf wax derived biomarkers in two loess paleosol sequences lpss namely the gleina and the rottewitz lpss the weichselian paleosols are characterised by n alkane concentration maxima when compared to the loess layers when this coincides with high odd over even predominances oeps this points not only to increased n alkane input and or production but also to increased n alkane preservation in the soils namely in gleysols with water logged edaphic conditions by contrast the buried cambisols reveal low oeps indicating accelerated degradation under aerobic edaphic conditions the n alkane concentrations in the truncated eemian interglacial paleosol are very low this reflects the removal of the formerly n alkane enriched eemian topsoil low n alkane input into the b t s d horizon subsoil horizon of the eemian luvisol and or strong soil organic matter mineralization four investigated n alkane ratios show distinct variations during the weichselian tempting inferences of vegetation changes in terms of varying contributions of tree shrub derived dominated by n c 27 or n c 29 versus grass derived dominated by n c 31 or n c 33 n alkanes however using the oep as a proxy for degradation and considering that n alkane ratios are prone to degradation effects the above interpretation is very likely incorrect degradation can account for most variability of the n alkane ratios applying an endmember model based on a modern n alkane reference dataset allows estimating the contribution of tree shrub versus grass derived n alkanes semi quantitatively these modelling results suggest that both the gleina and the rottewitz lpss were formed under prevailing grassland minor contributions of trees shrubs are only likely for the gleinaer soil complex in rottewitz lps for the top of a brown gleysol in gleina lps and the holocene soil the weichselian vegetation changes as inferred from the uncorrected n alkane ratios are not confirmed overall the n alkane results support the idea that the gleinaer soil complex in gleina and rottewitz lps respectively are not identical but rather are chronostratigraphic equivalents more favourable regional climatic conditions presumably occurred in the southwesterly exposed rottewitz locality and allowed tree shrub vegetation to grow during favourable periods of the weichselian a major shortcoming of the n alkane biomarker method is that only vegetation changes of deciduous woodland to grassland and vice versa can be reconstructed because coniferous trees exhibit by two to three orders of magnitude lower n alkane concentrations

oceanic mechanisms for amplification of the 23 000 year ice volume cycle situated adjacent to the largest northern hemispher ice sheets of the ice ages the mid latitude north atlantic ocean has an important role in the earth s climate history it provides a significant local source of moisture for the atmosphere and adjacent continents forms a corridor that guides moisture bearing storms northward from low latitudes and at times makes direct contact along its shorelines with continental ice masses evidence of major ice ocean air interactions involving the north atlantic during the last 250 000 years is summarized outflow of icebergs and meltwater initially driven by summer insolation over the ice sheets affects midlatitude ocean temperatures summer heat storage winter sea ice extent and global sea level these oceanic responses in turn influence the winter moisture flux back to the ice sheets as well as ablation of land ice by calving spectral data indicate that the oceanic moisture and sea level feedbacks in part controlled by glacial melt products amplify milankovitch insolation forcing of the volumetrically dominant mid latitude ice sheets at the 23 000 year precessional cycle

modeling the distribution and seasonality of neogloboquadrina pachyderma in the north atlantic ocean during heinrich stadial 1

past extent of sea ice in the northern north atlantic inferred from foraminiferal paleotemperature estimates 1 using 150 core top samples we developed a conservative but fairly robust new measure to reconstruct past changes in maximum seasonal sea ice distribution in the northern north atlantic hitherto a major unknown the proxy is based on similarity maximum modern analog technique simmax estimates of threshold temperatures near the sea surface sst today almost 100 of all sites with sst 2 5 c during summer 0 4 for winters 1978 1987 and 0 75 c for little ice age winters lie seaward of the sea ice margin when applied to 60 sediment records of the last glacial maximum this proxy shows that peak glacial sea ice was far more restricted than in the classic climap project members 1981 reconstruction during glacial summer sea ice only covered the arctic ocean and western fram strait the northern north atlantic and nordic seas were largely ice free and thus formed a high latitude moisture source for the continued buildup of continental ice sheets in contrast sea ice spread far south across the iceland faeroe ridge during glacial winter with an inferred patch of sea ice also in the central east atlantic near the center of the azores high a broad ice free channel extended from 50 to 60 n forming an ideal site for large scale convection of glacial upper north atlantic deep water the extreme seasonality in glacial sea ice formation and melt in the nordic seas implies a major consumption of the regional energy income

the demise of the last interglacial recorded in isotopically dated speleothems from the alps abstract the transition from interglacial to glacial climate has attracted much attention in paleoclimatic research partly because orbital forcing dictates that such a return to a new ice age is inescapable albeit in the distant future only the detailed series of steps that leads to glacial inceptions remains poorly understood however and studies of past glacial inceptions are often compromised by incomplete records imprecise chronological control and or uncertainties associated with proxy transfer functions here we present results from u th dated speleothems from a cave in the austrian alps entrische kirche cave which grew continuously between ca 127 and 114 ka and intermittently also during subsequent stadials and interstadials the alpine setting of this cave is prone to periglacial and glacial processes as well as temperature and precipitation changes which are recorded in these cave deposits we use high resolution stable isotope data to constrain paleoenvironmental changes associated with the demise of the last interglacial unprecedented in detail for central europe peak interglacial conditions are characterized by high 18 o values and high growth rates from ca 127 to 124 ka a major drop in 18 o by 3 occurred at ca 118 ka which coincided with cold event c26 in the north atlantic this isotopic shift which occurred at or close to isotopic equilibrium cannot be explained by simple uniform cooling modelling suggests that enhanced seasonality dominated by significant changes in winter precipitation are required to reconcile the isotope data with the fact that calcite deposition continued across the mis 5e d transition i e no cave freezing this period of enhanced seasonality lasted for several millennia during which the catchment area of the cave remained geomorphologically stable and ice free eventually speleothem growth terminated at ca 114 ka which is in line with widespread ice rafting in the north atlantic cold event c24 and the onset of fully stadial conditions during mis 5d

earlier history of the 70 ma old canary hotspot based on the temporal and geochemical evolution of the selvagen archipelago and neighboring seamounts in the eastern north atlantic major element trace element and sr nd pb isotope data combined with 40ar 39ar age determinations of volcanic rocks from the selvagen islands and neighboring seamounts in the eastern north atlantic reveal the earlier history of the 70 ma old canary hotspot a basanitic to phonolitic late shield stage intrusive complex 29 ma is exposed on selvagem pequena the evolution of selvagem grande can be divided into three magmatic phases a tephritic to phonolitic late shield stage intrusive complex 24 26 ma and two rejuvenated or post erosional stages 8 12 and 3 4 ma consisting of alkali basalt basanite and rare phonolite during the early to mid miocene volcanic hiatus 12 24 ma the top of the volcano was beneath sea level as evidenced by marine carbonate sediments 13 24 ma dated through correlation of 87sr 86sr with the seawater sr isotope curve the geochemistry of the shield stage lavas indicates that they derive from plume sources whereas the post erosional lavas are derived from metasomatized lithospheric sources five sampled seamounts to the east and northeast of the islands range in composition from alkali basalt and basanite to phonolite samples from dacia conception bank and lars were dated at 9 17 and 68 ma respectively geochemical data suggest that the dredged samples come from the post erosional stage of volcanism and therefore the dates represent minimum ages for the seamount volcanoes the elevation of erosional platforms formed at wave base decrease from selvagen grande 100 m above sea level to lars seamount 900 m below sea level suggesting a southwest to northwest age progression and that all of these seamounts are older than the selvagen islands trace element and sr nd pb isotopic composition of the selvagen islands and neighboring seamounts are consistent with their origin from the canary plume interaction of the weak canary mantle plume with a slow moving plate appears to be responsible for generating a 450 km wide irregular hotspot track extending 800 km from the youngest canary island of hierro in the southwest to lars seamount in the northeast

high resolution record of late glacial and deglacial sea ice changes in fram strait corroborates ice ocean interactions during abrupt climate shifts the transition from last glacial to deglacial and subsequently to modern interglacial climate conditions was accompanied by abrupt shifts in the palaeoceanographic setting in the subpolar north atlantic knowledge about the role that sea ice coverage played during these rapid climate reversals is limited since most marine sediment cores from the higher latitudes provide only a coarse temporal resolution and often poorly preserved microfossils here we present a highly resolved reconstruction of sea ice conditions that characterised the eastern fram strait a key area for water mass exchange between the arctic ocean and the north atlantic for the past 30 ka bp this reconstruction is based on the distribution of the sea ice biomarker ip25 and phytoplankton derived biomarkers in a sediment core from the continental slope of western svalbard during the late glacial 30 ka to 19 ka bp recurrent advances and retreats of sea ice characterised the study area and point to a hitherto less considered oceanic and or atmospheric variability a long lasting perennial sea ice coverage in eastern fram strait persisted only at the very end of the last glacial maximum i e from 19 2 to 17 6 ka bp and was abruptly reduced at the onset of heinrich event 1 coincident with or possibly even inducing the collapse of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc further maximum sea ice conditions prevailed during the younger dryas cooling event and support the assumption of an amoc reduction due to increased formation and export of arctic sea ice through fram strait a significant retreat of sea ice and sea surface warming are observed for the early holocene

comparative 14c and osl dating of loess paleosol sequences to evaluate post depositional contamination of n alkane biomarkers there is an ongoing controversial discussion as to whether n alkane lipid biomarkers and organic matter of loess in general reflect a synsedimentary paleoenvironmental climate signal or whether they are significantly affected by postdepositional contamination for example related to root and rhizomicrobial activity in order to address this issue at our study site the middle to late weichselian loess paleosol sequence gleina in saxony germany we determined and compared radiocarbon ages of bulk n alkanes and sedimentation ages as assessed by optically stimulated luminescence osl dating the bulk n alkanes of the four dated samples yielded calibrated 14c ages ranging from 24 1 to 49 7 cal ka bp 95 4 probability ranges while the three uppermost n alkane samples are well within the range or even slightly older than the osl inferred sedimentation ages the lowermost n alkane sample is slightly younger than the osl ages there is hence little or no evidence at our study site for n alkanes in loess paleosol sequences being significantly contaminated by deep subsoil rooting or microbial processes we propose a 14c isotope mass balance calculation for estimating such contaminations quantitatively radiocarbon dating of bulk n alkanes might have great potential for quaternary research and we encourage further comparative 14c and osl studies

origins of peri saharan dust deposits traced by their nd and sr isotopic composition abstract isotopic ratios of sr and nd can be used as very precise tracers in conjunction with mineralogical geochemical tracers and climatic models to identify the origins of dust deposit and to quantify their fluxes both today and throughout the last climati cycles this technique is useful for constraining aeolian transport and atmospheric circulation trajectories from desert sources and over the oceans the present work concerns dust deposits surrounding the saharan desert on the canary islands the african fraction of the dust deposits displays isotopic values which are typical of moroccan origin on the other hand tunisian loesses have been derived from the northern part of the sahara in this case tracers are sensitive enough to distinguish between center saharan shield origin and peri saharan secondary sources allowing us to distinguish between transport due to the trade winds vs the harmattan or mediterranean wind regimes

on the movements of the north atlantic subpolar front in the preinstrumental past abstractthree sediment records of sea surface temperature sst are analyzed that originate from distant locations in the north atlantic have centennial to multicentennial resolution are based on the same reconstruction method and chronological assumptions and span the past 15 000 yr using recursive least squares techniques an estimate of the time dependent north atlantic sst field over the last 15 kyr is sought that is consistent with both the sst records and a surface ocean circulation model given estimates of their respective error co variances under the authors assumptions about data and model errors it is found that the 10 c mixed layer isotherm which approximately traces the modern subpolar front would have moved by 15 of latitude southward northward in the eastern north atlantic at the onset termination of the younger dryas cold interval yd a result significant at the level of two standard deviations in the isotherm position in contrast meridional movements of the isotherm in

glacial north atlantic sea surface conditions reconstructed by glamap 2000 the response of the tropical ocean to global climate change and the extent of sea ice in the glacial nordic seas belong to the great controversies in paleoclimatology our new reconstruction of peak glacial sea surface temperatures ssts in the atlantic is based on census counts of planktic foraminifera using the maximum similarity technique version 28 simmax 28 modern analog technique with 947 modern analog samples and 119 well dated sediment cores our study compares two slightly different scenarios of the last glacial maximum lgm the environmental processes of the ice age land oceans glaciers epilog and glacial atlantic ocean mapping glamap 2000 time slices the comparison shows that the maximum lgm cooling in the southern hemisphere slightly preceeded that in the north in both time slices sea ice was restricted to the north western margin of the nordic seas during glacial northern summer while the central and eastern parts were ice free during northern glacial winter sea ice advanced to the south of iceland and faeroe in the central northern north atlantic an anticyclonic gyre formed between 45degrees and 60degreesn with a cool water mass centered west of ireland where glacial cooling reached a maximum of 12degreesc in the subtropical ocean gyres the new reconstruction supports the glacial to interglacial stability of sst as shown by climap project members climap 1981 the zonal belt of minimum sst seasonality between 2degrees and 6degreesn suggests that the lgm caloric equator occupied the same latitude as today in contrast to the climap reconstruction the glacial cooling of the tropical east atlantic upwelling belt reached up to 6degrees 8degreesc during northern hemisphere summer differences between these simmax based and published u37 k and mg ca based equatorial sst records are ascribed to strong sst seasonalities and sst signals that were produced by different planktic species groups during different seasons

centennial scale surface hydrology off portugal during marine isotope stage 3 insights from planktonic foraminiferal fauna variability 1 the marine isotopic stage 3 mis3 at ocean drilling program odp site 1060 gulf stream shows both sharp onset and end of interstadials the existence of very short lived warm events during stadials and points to differences in detail between the sea surface temperature sst record from the western north atlantic and the atmospheric temperature record inferred from 18o in greenland ice investigating mis3 and obtaining comparable data from other locations appears crucial the eastern atlantic provides well documented records of climate changes we have selected a core from off portugal and use it to examine dansgaard oeschger events d o at centennial scale resolution 139 years on average between two data points we have obtained a faunal data set for core md01 2444 37 n 10 w 2600 m water depth and use a group of species globigerina bulloides globigerinita glutinata as a proxy of upwelling intensity driven by trade winds intensity changes we tentatively relate the variation of this group to a north atlantic oscillation like phenomenon nao off portugal we observe that it resembles the rainfall index in the caribbean as recorded at odp site 1002 cariaco basin which traces the intertropical convergence zone itcz location through changes of terrigenous inputs the driest intervals itzc to the south at site 1002 correspond to intervals of increased upwelling in md01 2444 as well as the driest periods identified during stadials on similar cores in the area because the itzc to the south is consistent with an el nino southern oscillation enso situation our study suggests a positive correlation between enso like conditions and nao like conditions at a millennial timescale during interstadial intervals when increased wetness over cariaco is recorded itcz to the north and the upwelling in md01 2444 is decreased we see from both ssts and faunal tropical indicators that md01 2444 site is warm in addition interstadials are equally warm through each so called bond cycle this contrasts with the greenland ice core project grip record where interstadial peaks are successively cooler through each bond cycle this record confirms a link between tropical climate linked to itcz position and the climate of southern europe at millennial timescales in spite of showing a very good correlation with polar latitudes grip through 18o on globigerina bulloides in addition because the warmest ssts and the 18o on g bulloides are so remarkably different our work points to changes in seasonality as a strong control over the climatic pattern of the north atlantic area and the marked influence of winter conditions

environmental processes of the ice age land oceans glaciers epilog knowledge of the state of the earth at the last glacial maximum lgm an interval around 21 000 years ago is an important benchmark for understanding the sensitivity of global environmental systems to change much progress in understanding climates of the lgm has occurred in the 20 years since the end of the climap project of the 1970s climate long range investigation mapping and prediction here we review this progress based on presentations and discussion at a rst open science meeting of the epilog project environmental processes of the ice age land oceans glaciers held in delmenhorst germany may 1999 we outline key controversies and document protocols for epilog contributions so that a new synthesis of the lgm earth can emerge as an open project of the world s community of scientists 2001 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

response of planktic foraminiferal size to late quaternary climate change 1 geographical size distribution within entire holocene foraminiferal assemblages is related to global environmental gradients such as temperature primary productivity and environmental variability this study demonstrates that these correlations are also recognizable in late quaternary assemblages from three locations in the south atlantic on temporal and latitudinal scales the size response to temporal paleoenvironmental changes during glacial interglacial cycles mimics the geographic holocene size variability the amplitude of size variability is directly related to the amplitude of the climatic fluctuations as shown by the stable size temperature relationship over time the documented changes in the assemblage size are caused by species replacement and intraspecific size variability the relative importance of these processes depends on the environmental setting species have been shown to reach their maximum size and abundance under certain optimum conditions and decrease in size if environmental conditions differ from these optima we confirm that late quaternary species sizes were largest at paleotemperatures identical to holocene ones

northeast atlantic sea surface circulation during the past 30 10 14c kyr b p a study was made of three cores from the faeroe shetland gateway based on planktonic foraminifera oxygen isotopes accelerator mass spectrometry 14c dates magnetic susceptibility and counts of ice rafted debris ird the data covering the period 30 10 ka show that during the last glacial maximum the arctic front occupied a position close to the faeroes allowing a persisting inflow of atlantic surface water into the faeroe shetland channel the oceanographic environment during deposition of two ird layers is influenced by atlantic surface water masses during the lower ird layer with transport of icebergs from n nw polar surface water conditions prevailed only during deposition of the upper ird layer there is no indication of surface meltwater influence in the region during the deglaciation but there is a persistent influence of atlantic surface water masses in the region thus we conclude that during almost the entire period 30 10 ka the faeroe shetland channel was a gateway for transport of atlantic surface water toward the norwegian sea

variability of north atlantic heat transfer during mis 2 1 short term changes in sea surface conditions controlling the thermohaline circulation in the northern north atlantic are expected to be especially efficient in perturbing global climate stability here we assess past variability of sea surface temperature sst in the northeast atlantic and norwegian sea during marine isotope stage mis 2 and in particular during the last glacial maximum lgm five high resolution sst records were established on a meridional transect 53 n 72 n to trace centennial scale oscillations in sst and sea ice cover we used three independent computational techniques simmax modern analogue technique artificial neural networks ann and revised analog method ram to reconstruct sst from planktonic foraminifer census counts simmax and ann reproduced short term sst oscillations of similar magnitude and absolute levels while ram owing to a restrictive analog selection appears less suitable for reconstructing cold end sst the simmax and ann sst reconstructions support the existence of a weak paleo norwegian current during dansgaard oeschger do interstadials number 4 3 2 and 1 during the lgm two warm incursions of 7 c water to occurred in the northern north atlantic but ended north of the iceland faroe ridge a rough numerical estimate shows that the near surface poleward heat transfer from 53 across the iceland faroe ridge up to to 72 n dropped to less than 60 of the modern value during do interstadials and to almost zero during do stadials summer sea ice was generally confined to the area north of 70 n and only rarely expanded southward along the margins of continental ice sheets internal lgm variability of north atlantic 40 n sst in the glamap 2000 compilation sarnthein et al 2003b pflaumann et al 2003 indicates maximum instability in the glacial subpolar gyre and at the iberian margin while in the nordic seas sst was continuously low

temperature sensitivity of planktic foraminifera and its influence on the oxygen isotope record abstract we used oxygen isotope measurements from holocene surface sediments to infer optimum temperature and temperature sensitivity of the planktic foraminiferal species globigerinoides ruber pink and globigerinoides sacculifer the isotopic optimum temperature of g ruber pink is close to 27 c g sacculifer seems to have optimum vital conditions around 22 c and is less temperature sensitive than g ruber pink our estimations of optimum temperature and temperature sensitivity are in good accordance with laboratory and field investigations two simple experiments show that the temperature sensitivity of planktic foraminifera determined from oxygen isotopes can influence phase and amplitude of oxygen isotope records if the temperature distribution at the sea surface changes through time to use this distortion for paleoceanography we suggest to derive an isotopic transfer function which allows the calculation of average temperature temperature variability and the isotopic composition of seawater if the oxygen isotope differences between at least three species are known

glacial cold water coral growth in the gulf of cadiz implications of increased palaeo productivity a set of 40 uranium series datings obtained on the reef forming scleractinian cold water corals lophelia pertusa and madrepora oculata revealed that during the past 400 kyr their occurrence in the gulf of cadiz goc was almost exclusively restricted to glacial periods this result strengthens the outcomes of former studies that coral growth in the temperate ne atlantic encompassing the french iberian and moroccan margins dominated during glacial periods whereas in the higher latitudes irish and norwegian margins extended coral growth prevailed during interglacial periods thus it appears that the biogeographical limits for sustained cold water coral growth along the ne atlantic margin are strongly related to climate change by focussing on the last glacial interglacial cycle this study shows that palaeo productivity was increased during the last glacial this was likely driven by the fertilisation effect of an increased input of aeolian dust and locally intensified upwelling after the younger dryas cold event the input of aeolian dust and productivity significantly decreased concurrent with an increase in water temperatures in the goc this primarily resulted in reduced food availability and caused a widespread demise of the formerly thriving coral ecosystems moreover these climate induced changes most likely caused a latitudinal shift of areas with optimum coral growth conditions towards the northern ne atlantic where more suitable environmental conditions established with the onset of the holocene

paleoceanographic development in the sw barents sea during the late weichselian early holocene transition abstract the late weichselian early holocene variability of the north atlantic current has been studied with focus on the zonal component of this meridional transport during the transition from glacial to interglacial conditions the investigated sediment core is from 409 m water depth in the sw barents sea eight accelerator mass spectrometry ams 14c dates show that the core covers the last 20 000 cal yr b p with a centennial scale resolution during late weichselian early holocene planktic foraminiferal assemblages were analyzed using the 100 m size fraction and foraminiferal planktic and benthic 13c and 18o isotopes were measured furthermore a range of physical and chemical analyses has been carried out on the bulk sediment samples four time periods have been identified which represent the varying oceanographic conditions in ingoydjupet a glacial trough located off the north coast of norway in the sw barents sea 1 the late glacial before ca 15 000 cal yr b p influenced by the nearby ice sheets with high amounts of sea ice or iceberg transported detritus 2 the late oldest dryas stadial and the bolling allerod interstadial ca 15 000 12 700 cal yr b p with cold surface water conditions influenced by the collapse of the nearby ice sheets high amounts of sea ice or iceberg transported detritus and melt water and weak subsurface inflow of atlantic water 3 the younger dryas cold stadial 12 700 11 650 cal yr b p with low primary productivity and extensive sea ice cover and 4 the preboreal and early holocene 11 650 6800 cal yr b p cal yr b p with strong influx of atlantic water into the area near absence of ice rafted debris and generally ameliorated conditions in both surface and bottom water masses as seen from a high flux of foraminifera and increased marine primary production

granulometrical mineralogical and geochemical characterization of loess deposits in the tajo basin abstract loess research has the merit of enabling reconstructions of pleistocene sedimentation dynamics in many parts of the world however there is still very few information regarding the occurrence of loess deposits in the mediterranean area even though such records may provide a unique opportunity to investigate landscape evolution for a period for which terrestrial archives are very rare in this region this paper presents the first results of investigations on a loess sequence in the middle tajo valley in central spain findings from detailed granulometrical mineralogical geochemical and grain morphological analyses help to give a first overview on character and composition of these deposits very high levels of carbonates 60 but also of gypsum both to large extents of primary origin indicate the incorporation of material derived from marls and limestone furthermore we found evidence that allows deduction of possible loess proveniences more precisely dolomite contents of up to 20 indicate that the iberian range might have been an important source area of loess sediments the fact that these uplands are located to the east seems to be opposed to the common assumption of prevailing west winds for glacial periods the studied sequence paraiso profile is one of seven sections that have been investigated as part of a programme to reconstruct upper pleistocene landscape dynamics in central spain in this context the detailed characterisation of sediment properties is crucial for discussing loess proveniences and sedimentary environments

isotopic evidence for the eolian origin of quartz and mica in soils developed on volcanic materials in the canary archipelago quartz and mica contents of soils developed on volcanic materials in the canary archipelago lanzarote tenerife gomera and la palma islands off western africa are often higher in surficial horizons with higher rainfall and older landscape age the soil quartz particles are fine grained less than 53 m in diameter and well sorted the oxygen isotopic abundance 18osmow of fine aerosol sized quartz 1 10 m in diameter showed a range of 16 0 to 18 2 the values are compatible with those of the same sized quartz from two holocene deep sea sediments in cape verde rise 16 0 and 16 1 and saharan dusts 15 8 la laguna tenerife 16 2 barbados west indies a distinct 87sr 86sr ratio of 0 717 for a micaceous horizon from lanzarote is comparable with those of saharan dusts 0 715 to 0 721 but not with reported values 0 7032 from local volcanics these geochemical parameters show that the fine grained quartz together with mica in soils of the canary archipelago are transported from north african sahara deserts by trade winds and negate both possibilities of authigenesis and inheritance from weathering of local volcanics

modeling the water masses of the atlantic ocean at the last glacial maximum 1 we produced gridded monthly sea surface boundary conditions for the atlantic ocean at the last glacial maximum lgm based on the sea surface temperature reconstruction of the glamap project we used an ocean general circulation model ogcm subject to these sea surface boundary conditions and a corresponding wind stress field from an atmospheric general circulation model to study the differences in the distribution of the main water masses between the lgm and the present our global ogcm is characterized by high vertical resolution low vertical diffusion and isopycnal mixing and hence allows for a realistic representation of the hydrology and circulation of the modern atlantic ocean according to a series of lgm experiments with an increasing sea surface salinity anomaly in the weddell sea the ventilated thermocline was colder than today by 2 3 c in the north atlantic ocean and in the experiment with the largest anomaly 1 0 beyond the global anomaly by 4 5 c in the south atlantic ocean its depth was reduced by 50 m on average most notably in the tropics in the north atlantic ocean the outcrop locations of the thermocline isopycnal surfaces migrated southward by 5 10 and the ventilation increased in the south atlantic ocean the mixed layer and thermocline water masses were dominated by cold water originating from drake passage and the import of warm water from the indian ocean was reduced to about 4 sv or 40 of its modern value antarctic intermediate water was colder by 3 4 c and could be traced as far as 10 n the meridional overturning rates of north atlantic deep water nadw and antarctic bottom water aabw in the atlantic ocean were similar to those of the present day experiment 9 10 sv and 4 sv respectively however nadw cooled by 2 5 c and aabw by 1 c aabw was near the freezing point of seawater at the surface and the saltiest water mass in the atlantic ocean even saltier than nadw we show that the differences between the lgm and the present day experiments can be traced back to the changes in the subpolar and interhemispheric sea surface density gradients

arctic ocean evidence for late quaternary initiation of northern eurasian ice sheets a high resolution multiparameter stratigraphy allows the identification of late quaternary glacial and interglacial cycles in a central arctic ocean sediment core distinct sandy layers in the upper part of the otherwise fine grained sediment core from the lomonosov ridge lat 87 5 n correlate to four major glacials since ca 0 7 ma the composition of these ice rafted terrigenous sediments points to a glaciated northern siberia as the main source in contrast lithic carbonates derived from north america are also present in older sediments and indicate a northern north american glaciation since at least 2 8 ma we conclude that large scale northern siberian glaciation began much later than other northern hemisphere ice sheets

past circulation along the western iberian margin a time slice vision from the last glacial to the holocene abstract fifteen iberian margin sediment cores distributed between 43 12 n and 35 53 n have been used to reconstruct spatial and temporal sub surface circulation along the iberian margin since the last glacial period time slice maps of planktonic foraminiferal derived summer sea surface temperature sst and export productivity pexp were established for specific time intervals within the last 35 ky the holocene recent and last 8 ky younger dryas yd heinrich stadials hs 1 2a 2b 3 and the last glacial maximum lgm the sst during the holocene shows the same latitudinal gradient along the western iberian margin as present day with cold but productive areas that reflect the influence of coastal upwelling centers the lgm appears as a slightly less warm but more productive period relative to the holocene and present day conditions suggesting that sea level minima forced a westward displacement of the coastal upwelling centers possibly accompanied by a strengthening of northward winds during the yd a longitudinal thermal front is depicted at 10 w with cold polar waters offshore and warmer subtropical waters inshore suggesting that the subtropical paleo iberian poleward current more likely flowed at a more inshore location masking the local sst signal and amplitude of variation a substantial cooling and drop in productivity is observed during all hs in particular hs1 and hs3 reflecting the penetration of icebergs derived meltwater these most extreme southward extensions of very cold waters define a strong sst gradient that marks a possible paleo azores front higher production south of this front was likely fed by frontal nutrient advection

quantitative estimation of bioclimatic parameters from presence absence vegetation data in north america by the modern analog technique abstract the method of modern analogs is widely used to obtain estimates of past climatic conditions from paleobiological assemblages and despite its frequent use this method involved so far untested assumptions we applied four analog approaches to a continental scale set of bioclimatic and plant distribution presence absence data for north america to assess how well this method works under near optimal modern conditions for each point on the grid we calculated the similarity between its vegetation assemblage and those of all other points on the grid excluding nearby points the climate of the points with the most similar vegetation was used to estimate the climate at the target grid point estimates based the use of the jaccard similarity coefficient had smaller errors than those based on the use of a new similarity coefficient although the latter may be more robust because it does not assume that the fossil assemblage is complete the results of these analyses indicate that presence absence vegetation assemblages provide a valid basis for estimating bioclimates on the continental scale however the accuracy of the estimates is strongly tied to the number of species in the target assemblage and the analog method is necessarily constrained to produce estimates that fall within the range of observed values we applied the four modern analog approaches and the mutual overlap or mutual climatic range method to estimate bioclimatic conditions represented by the plant macrofossil assemblage from a packrat midden of last glacial maximum age from southern nevada in general the estimation approaches produced similar results in regard to moisture conditions but there was a greater range of estimates for growing degree days despite its limitations the modern analog technique can provide paleoclimatic reconstructions that serve as the starting point to the interpretation of past climatic conditions

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

surface water conditions and calcium carbonate preservation in the fram strait during marine isotope stage 2 28 8 15 4 kyr 1 we present a high resolution record of calcium carbonate preservation alongside the distribution pattern of planktic foraminifera from the fram strait the record covers the marine isotope stage mis 2 28 8 to 15 4 kyr including the last glacial maximum lgm and the early deglaciation in multidecadal temporal resolution the investigation is based on the distribution patterns of planktic foraminifera stable isotopes mean shell weight of neogloboquadrina pachyderma the degree of fragmentation of planktic shells caco3 content and geochemical and sedimentological data the dissolution proxies indicate long lasting periods of markedly reduced preservation of calcium carbonate at 28 8 27 2 24 1 23 2 and 16 6 15 4 kyr in addition to a number of short lasting periods 300 year during the lgm these periods are accompanied by a simultaneous and significant reduction in specimens of subpolar planktic foraminifera indicating a southward expansion of arctic surface water masses prolonged periods with high abundances of subpolar foraminiferal species and good preservation of calcium carbonate are attributed to increased influence of atlantic water masses which appears to persist throughout most of the mis 2 comparison to holocene mis 1 shell weight records shows that the preservation during mis 2 was overall better even during the events of dissolution this was probably a reflection of the low concentration of atmospheric co2 at the time

geoarchaeological and chronometrical evidence of early human occupation on lanzarote canary islands abstract two desert loess paleosol sequences in sediment traps were investigated using pedo stratigraphy sedimentology soil mineralogy and irsl dating so far we cannot recognise significant irsl age underestimates from the polymineral fine grain fraction of our samples we establish a first palaeoclimatic sequence spanning the past ca 200 ka which can be compared to data from other canary islands and surrounding areas including terrestrial and deep sea records more humid phases on lanzarote are apparently triggered by milankovich forcing but the climate remained semi arid to arid all over the past 200 ka the onset of human occupation of the island during a slightly moister period is bracketed between 5 and 10 ka based on the occurrence of archaeosediments containing bones of ovicaprid this is the first proof of much earlier occupation than witnessed so far from archaeological records the early subsidiary economy had a strong impact on soil stability and landscape shaping of the island

mid to late holocene oceanographic variability on the southeast greenland shelf a reconstruction of oceanographic variability of the past 5800 years on the southeast greenland shelf was obtained by analysing a combined marine sediment record based on two cores from the same site cores fox04g 05r were retrieved from a side basin to a cross shelf trough connecting the 900 m deep sermilik fjord with the irminger sea in the northwestern north atlantic the record was analysed in terms of grain size distribution xrf and benthic and planktonic foraminiferal content and the chronology was obtained on the basis of 210pb and 14c dating the late holocene paleoceanographic variations in the record were characterised by a marked influence from the irminger current ic at the onset of the record at 5800 cal yr bp and the regional holocene climatic optimum between 5200 and 4200 cal yr bp after 3600 cal yr bp neoglacial cooling with increased influence of polar waters from the east greenland current egc diminished the influence from the ic between 1500 and 700 cal yr bp the environment

variation of foraminiferal sr ca over quaternary glacial interglacial cycles evidence for changes in mean ocean sr ca 1 records of sr ca changes in planktonic and benthic foraminifera from diverse hydrographic settings reveal coherent variability 5 1 between ocean basins and between surface and deep waters over the past 300 kyr there is a general increase in foraminiferal sr ca over the penultimate glaciation declining to minimum values during stage 5 and an increase in sr ca from stage 5 through stage 2 coincident changes in benthic foraminifera records from the atlantic and pacific basins imply that sr ca variations are not dominated by dissolution planktonic culturing data provide evidence that the downcore sr ca variations are not controlled by temperature changes and suggest only a small influence of salinity and ph variation common to the records is most readily explained by changes in mean ocean sr ca if fossil foraminifera reliably record higher glacial seawater sr ca coral sr paleothermometry would underestimate sea surface temperature during glacialepisodes

late paleogene sinistral strike slip system along east qinling and in southern north china implications for interaction between collision related block trans rotation and subduction related back arc extension in east china abstract we present in this paper a compilation of paleogene rift and strike slip structures in east qinling and southern north china based on a synthesis of published stratigraphic structural and thermochronological data which aids in delineating a broad 500 km wide kinematically interlinked eocene oligocene transtensional system this transtensional system was bifurcated from two discrete strike slip fault zones in ne tibetan plateau the overall fault patterns indicate a clockwise rotation of south china relative to north china during the cenozoic possibly driven by dextral shearing along the eastern tibetan margin this collision related trans rotation of south china occurred coevally with late paleogene intracontinental rifting and volcanism in east china in a subduction related back arc extensional setting these two tectonic processes interacted with each other giving birth to cenozoic rift systems and contrasting morpho structural features in east asia

sea surface temperatures in the equatorial and south atlantic ocean during the last glacial maximum 23 19 ka 1 we used planktic foraminiferal assemblages in 70 sediment cores from the tropical and subtropical south atlantic ocean 10 n 37 s to estimate annual mean sea surface temperatures ssts and seasonality for the last glacial maximum with a modified version of the imbrie kipp transfer function method iktf that takes into account the abundance of rare but temperature sensitive species in contrast to climap project members 1981 the reconstructed ssts indicate cooler glacial ssts in the entire tropical subtropical south atlantic with strongest cooling in the upwelling region off namibia 7 10 c and smallest cooling 1 2 c in the western subtropical gyre in the western atlantic our data support recent temperature estimates from other proxies in the upwelling regions in the eastern atlantic our data conflict with sst reconstructions from alkenones which may be due to an environmental preference of the alkenone producing algae or to an underestimation of foraminiferal ssts due to anomalous high abundances of n pachyderma sinistral

a 220ka terrestrial δ18o and deuterium excess biomarker record from an eolian permafrost paleosol sequence ne siberia the natural abundances of stable oxygen 18o 16o and hydrogen isotopes 2h 1h are valuable proxies of climate changes in the past yet to date no continuous 18o and only few 2h records are available from loess paleosol sequences taking advantage of a recently developed method based on compound specific 18o analyses of hemicellulose sugar biomarkers in soils zech and glaser 2009 rcm 23 3522 3532 we here present a first terrestrial 18o biomarker record from an eolian permafrost paleosol sequence in ne siberia that covers the last 220 ka the 18o values of the hemicellulose biomarkers arabinose and xylose range from 22 5 to 32 8 and from 21 3 to 31 9 respectively and reveal systematic glacial interglacial shifts the modern topsoil and the interglacial paleosols exhibit more positive 18o values whereas the glacial paleosols are characterized by more negative 18o values this is in agreement with the 2h record obtained for sedimentary n alkane leaf wax biomarkers we present a conceptual model for interpreting the combined 18o and 2h biomarker record based on this model we suggest that both our 18o and the 2h records primarily reflect the temperature controlled isotopic composition of paleoprecipitation modified by evaporative isotope enrichment of leaf water during transpiration considering fractionation factors during sugar and n alkane biomarker biosynthesis allows reconstructing the leaf water isotopic composition and the deuterium excess of the leaf water the deuterium excess may serve as proxy for evaporative enrichment and allows calculating relative humidity using a craig gordon model accordingly relative humidity in ne siberia was higher during marine isotope stage mis 6 compared to mis 2 4 and 5d and thus could help explaining the much larger extent of the late saalian glaciation compared to the weichselian glaciations using the craig gordon model we also calculated 18o of the plant source water 18osource water which can be assumed to primarily reflect 18o of paleoprecipitation our 220 ka 18osource water record is well in agreement with the 18odiatom record from crater lake el gygytgyn in ne siberia and enables a regional paleoclimate reconstruction and interpretation accordingly summer temperature was periodically warmer than at present during the weichselian glacial period and there is a strong july insolation forcing of the summer temperature in the extremely continental study area overall our study highlights the great potential of the novel hemicellulose biomarker 18o method for paleoclimate reconstructions especially when combined with 2h analyses of n alkane lipid biomarkers

terrestrial conditions at the last glacial maximum and climap sea surface temperature estimates are they consistent climap 1981 seasonal reconstruction of the earth s surface at the last glacial maximum geological society of america map and chart series mc 36 boundary conditions were used as inputs to the giss general circulation model and the last glacial maximum lgm climate was simulated for six model years the simulation was compared with snow line depression and pollen inferred temperature data at low latitudes specifically for hawaii colombia east africa and new guinea the model does not produced as much cooling at low latitudes as is implied by the terrestrial evidence an alternative experiment in which the climap sea surface temperatures were uniformly lowered by 2 c produces a better fit to the land data although in hawaii model temperatures are still too warm the relatively warm climap tropical sea surface temperatures also provide for only a slight decrease in the hydrologic cycle in the model in contrast to both evidence of lgm tropical aridity and the results of the experiment with colder ocean temperatures with the climap sea surface temperatures the lgm global annual mean surface air temperature is 3 6 c colder than at present if the ocean temperatures were allowed to cool in conformity with the model s radiation balance the lgm simulation would be 5 6 c colder than today and in better agreement with the tropical land evidence

southward migration of the intertropical convergence zone through the holocene titanium and iron concentration data from the anoxic cariaco basin off the venezuelan coast can be used to infer variations in the hydrological cycle over northern south america during the past 14 000 years with subdecadal resolution following a dry younger dryas a period of increased precipitation and riverine discharge occurred during the holocene thermal maximum since approximately 5400 years ago a trend toward drier conditions is evident from the data with high amplitude fluctuations and precipitation minima during the time interval 3800 to 2800 years ago and during the little ice age these regional changes in precipitation are best explained by shifts in the mean latitude of the atlantic intertropical convergence zone itcz potentially driven by pacific based climate variability the cariaco basin record exhibits strong correlations with climate records from distant regions including the high latitude northern hemisphere providing evidence for global teleconnections among regional climates

sea surface dynamics and palaeoenvironmental changes in the north atlantic ocean iodp site u1313 during marine isotope stage 19 inferred from coccolithophore assemblages abstract coccolithophore assemblages recovered from integrated ocean drilling program iodp site u1313 are investigated to reconstruct the palaeoceanographic evolution of a sector of the north atlantic during marine isotope stage mis 19 790 760 ka at orbital suborbital and millennial time scales the end of the glacial mis 20 is marked by the arrival of cold waters deriving from ice melting at higher latitudes as recorded by coccolithus pelagicus pelagicus the mis 19c is characterised by an extension of warmer north atlantic transitional waters natw reflecting the intensification of subtropical gyre influence on site u1313 identified by an increase in warm species umbilicosphaera sibogae the influence on the site of cooler natw is inferred from higher percentages of gephyrocapsa margereli which starts increasing from 779 ka finally the transition from mis 19a to mis 18 is characterised by a southward shift of the palaeoceanographic system due to a southward extension of the subpolar front as indicated by an increase of cold subspecies c pelagicus pelagicus the evolution of the palaeoproductivity proxy records number of coccoliths g of sediment and nannofossil accumulation rate nar and the abundances of small gephyrocapsa g margereli u sibogae and c pelagicus pelagicus show that fluctuations in sea surface productivity and alternations between cooling and warming phases occurred on the precessional timescale spectral analyses of u sibogae number of coccoliths g of sediment and nar indicate a significant concentration of variance close to half precession 10 kyr this reflects a nonlinear response of the mid latitude north atlantic surface ocean to low latitude insolation forcing furthermore millennial to multi centennial instability in sea surface dynamics is highlighted by spectral and wavelet analyses of u sibogae g margereli and c pelagicus pelagicus percentages number of coccoliths g of sediment and nar which reveal the occurrence of rapid events related to stadial and interstadial type conditions

timing of the last glacial maximum from observed sea level minima during the last glacial maximum ice sheets covered large areas in northern latitudes and global temperatures were significantly lower than today but few direct estimates exist of the volume of the ice sheets or the timing and rates of change during their advance and retreat here we analyze four distinct sediment facies in the shallow tectonically stable bonaparte gulf australia each of which is characteristic of a distinct range in sea level to estimate the maximum volume of land based ice during the last glaciation and the timing of the initial melting phase we use faunal assemblages and preservation status of the sediments to distinguish open marine shallow marine marginal marine and brackish conditions and estimate the timing and the mass of the ice sheets using radiocarbon dating and glacio hydroisostatic modelling our results indicate that from at least 22 000 to 19 000 calendar years before present land based ice volume was at its maximum exceeding today s grounded ice sheets by 52 5 x 10 exp 6 cu km a rapid decrease in ice volume by about 10 percent within a few hundred years terminated the last glacial maximum at 19 000 250 years

paleoceanographic evolution of the sw svalbard margin 76 n since 20 000 14c yr bp abstract two cores from the southwestern shelf and slope of storfjorden svalbard taken at 389 m and 1485 m water depth have been analyzed for benthic and planktic foraminifera oxygen isotopes and ice rafted debris the results show that over the last 20 000 yr atlantic water has been continuously present on the southwestern svalbard shelf however from 15 000 to 10 000 14c yr bp comprising the heinrich event h1 interval the bolling allerod interstades and the younger dryas stade it flowed as a subsurface water mass below a layer of polar surface water in the benthic environment the shift to interglacial conditions occurred at 10 000 14c yr bp due to the presence of a thin upper layer of polar water surface conditions remained cold until ca 9000 14c yr bp when the warm atlantic water finally appeared at the surface neither extensive sea ice cover nor large inputs of meltwater stopped the inflow of atlantic water its warm core was merely submerged below the cold polar surface water

changes in east atlantic deepwater circulation over the last 30 000 years eight time slice reconstructions using 95 epibenthic 13c records eight time slices were reconstructed to trace the distribution of east atlantic deepwater and intermediate water masses over the last 30 000 years our results show that there have been three distinct modes of deepwater circulation near the stage 3 2 boundary the origin of north atlantic deep water nadw was similar to today mode 1 however after late stage 3 the source region of the nadw end member shifted from the norwegian greenland sea to areas south of iceland mode 2 a reduced nadw flow persisted during the last glacial maximum with constant preformed 13c values the nutrient content of nadw increased markedly near the azores fracture zone from north to south probably because of the mixing of upwelled antarctic bottom water aabw from below which then advected with much higher flux rates into the northeast atlantic later the spread of glacial meltwater over the north atlantic led to a marked short term ventilation minimum below 1800 m about 13 500 14c years ago mode 3 the formation of nadw recommenced abruptly north of iceland 12 800 12 500 years ago and reached a volume approaching that of the holocene in the younger dryas 10 800 10 350 years b p another short term shutdown of deepwater formation followed between 10 200 and 9 600 years b p linked to a further major meltwater pulse into the atlantic each renewal of deepwater formation led to a marked release of fossil co2 from the ocean the likely cause of the contemporaneous 14c plateaus over the last 9000 years deepwater circulation varied little from today apart from a slight increase in aabw about 7000 14c years ago it is also shown that the oxygenated mediterranean outflow varied largely independent of the variations in deepwater circulation over the last 30 000 years

timing of millennial scale climate change in antarctica and greenland during the last glacial period a precise relative chronology for greenland and west antarctic paleotemperature is extended to 90 000 years ago based on correlation of atmospheric methane records from the greenland ice sheet project 2 and byrd ice cores over this period the onset of seven major millennial scale warmings in antarctica preceded the onset of greenland warmings by 1500 to 3000 years in general antarctic temperatures increased gradually while greenland temperatures were decreasing or constant and the termination of antarctic warming was apparently coincident with the onset of rapid warming in greenland this pattern provides further evidence for the operation of a bipolar see saw in air temperatures and an oceanic teleconnection between the hemispheres on millennial time scales

evidence for warm wet heinrich events in florida analyses of pollen and plant macrofossils from a new core spanning the past 60 000 years from lake tulane florida show a strong antiphase relationship in temperature between florida and the north atlantic region during the pleistocene oak scrub and prairie phases were coeval with long intense dansgaard oeschger interstadials warm periods that initiated bond cycles pine phases were coeval with the north atlantic long stadials cold periods that ended bond cycles and were terminated by heinrich events lake levels were higher during pine phases and climate was wetter however climate in florida was also warmer during these phases which were cold periods in the north atlantic perhaps diminution of thermohaline circulation before and during heinrich events reduced northward heat transport and retained warmth in the subtropical atlantic and gulf of mexico

foraminiferal faunal estimates of paleotemperature circumventing the no analog problem yields cool ice age tropics the sensitivity of the tropics to climate change particularly the amplitude of glacial to interglacial changes in sea surface temperature sst is one of the great controversies in paleoclimatology here we reassess faunal estimates of ice age ssts focusing on the problem of no analog planktonic foraminiferal assemblages in the equatorial oceans that confounds both classical transfer function and modern analog methods a new calibration strategy developed here which uses past variability of species to define robust faunal assemblages solves the no analog problem and reveals ice age cooling of 5 o to 6oc in the equatorial current systems of the atlantic and eastern pacific oceans classical transfer functions underestimated temperature changes in some areas of the tropical oceans because core top assemblages misrepresented the ice age faunal assemblages our finding is consistent with some geochemical estimates and model predictions of greater ice age cooling in the tropics than was inferred by climate long range investigation mapping and prediction climap 1981 and thus may help to resolve a long standing controversy our new foraminiferal transfer function suggests that such cooling was limited to the equatorial current systems however and supports climap s inference of stability of the subtropical gyre centers

nutricline variation in the equatorial atlantic coincident with the younger dryas variations in nutricline depth during the last deglaciation are recorded by the phytoplankton species florisphaera profunda a stacked record of six deep sea cores shows that across the entire equatorial atlantic there was a brief shallowing of the nutricline centered on 11 ka coincident with the younger dryas this shallowing is linked with high latitude north atlantic deglacial events we invoke high albedo and cool sea surface temperatures in the northern latitudes during 11 ka which steepened an already higher than expected winter insolation and hence temperature gradient for a time of june perihelion we postulate that the resultant increased pressure gradient caused an intensification of the northern hemisphere winter tropical easterlies which in turn caused equatorial divergence to occur in boreal winter

a high resolution opal and radiolarian record from the subpolar north atlantic during the mid pleistocene transition 1069 779ka palaeoceanographic implications abstract a high resolution record of radiolarian assemblages from site u1314 was studied to reconstruct hydrographic and climatic changes in the north atlantic ocean during the mid pleistocene transition period 1069 779 ka besides the faunal record absolute accumulation of radiolarians and total biogenic opal are used to determine changes in surface water productivity results show that the north atlantic arctic front shifted back and forth repeatedly at a glacial interglacial timescale bringing the site under the influence of both cold arctic glacial and much warmer atlantic interglacial waters during glacial intervals and ice rafted debris ird events the deep dwelling taxon cycladophora davisiana was the greatest contributor of the radiolarian assemblage suggesting cold surface conditions melt water discharge and changes in deep and intermediate circulation interglacial intervals were characterized by abundant shallow dwelling taxa like pseudodyctiophimus gracilipes and lithomelissa setosa increased opal accumulation and higher radiolarian diversities indicating a northward flow of warm atlantic surface waters to the site u1314 area a marked change in the structure of the radiolarian assemblage occurred after mis 22 860 ka with large taxa differences between warm and cold periods probably in response to changing ocean conditions due to the higher amplitude of glacial interglacial changes as the dominant periodicity of high latitude climate oscillations shifted from 41 kyr to 100 kyr thus we conclude that the radiolarian assemblage from the north atlantic have changed drastically along with variations in ocean circulation in response to orbital and millennial scale climatic variations that occurred in the early and mid pleistocene