an effect of dissolved nutrient concentrations on alkenone based temperature estimates the ratio of 37 carbon diunsaturated to diunsaturated and triunsaturated alkenones uk 37 produced by some haptophytes is widely used as a proxy for past sea surface temperatures however our isothermal culturing experiments with emiliania huxleyi clone ccmp372 show uk 37 values to also vary with nutrient availability and cell division rate these results provide a reasonable explanation for large isothermal variation in uk 37 values of single coccolithophorid strains grown in culture they also suggest that alkenone based estimates of past sea surface temperatures may have been influenced by dissolved nutrient concentrations as well as by temperature

mg ca ratios of single planktonic foraminifer shells and the potential to reconstruct the thermal seasonality of the water column mg ca ratios of surface and subsurface dwelling foraminifera provide valuable information about the past temperature of the water column planktonic foraminifera calcify over a period of weeks to months therefore the range of mg ca temperatures obtained from single specimens potentially records seasonal temperature changes we present solution derived mg ca ratios for single specimens of the planktonic foraminifera species globigerinoides ruber pink globigerinoides ruber white and globorotalia inflata from a sediment trap off northwest africa 20 45 6 n 18 41 9 w cleaning of single specimens was achieved using a flow through system in order to prevent sample loss mg ca ratios of surface dwelling g ruber pink show strong seasonality linked to sea surface temperature mg ca ratios of g ruber white do not show such seasonality subsurface dwelling g inflata flux is largest during the main upwelling season but mg ca ratios reflect annual temperatures at intermediate water depths the sediment trap time series suggests that changes in the range of mg ca ratios exhibited by single specimens of g ruber pink and g inflata from the sedimentary record should provide information on the past temperature range under which these species calcified statistical analysis suggests detectable changes in the mg ca range are 0 80 mmol mol g ruber pink and 0 34 mmol mol g inflata for g ruber pink such changes would indicate changes in the seasonal sea surface temperature range 4 c or a shift in the main calcification and reproductive period for g inflata such changes would indicate 1 7 c changes in the thermocline temperature or a change in the depth habitat

influence of the tropics and southern westerlies on glacial interhemispheric asymmetry latitudinal variations in the location of the southern westerly wind belt have been associated with millennial scale climate variations during the last glacial period a reconstruction of sea surface temperatures off the southern coast of australia suggests that these climate variations also drove changes in the location of the oceanic subtropical front

late quaternary productivity changes from offshore southeastern australia a biomarker approach reconstructions of primary productivity at low latitudes have been the focus of several studies to better understand how the export of nutrient rich intermediate southern ocean so waters influences productivity at these latitudes this was triggered by the general observation of minima in the planktonic foraminiferal delta c 13 values during deglaciations which was interpreted as an isotopic signal of intermediate so waters together with a concomitant increase in diatom productivity at some equatorial sites however the impact of these so waters on productivity at higher latitudes is not well constrained here we compare a high resolution planktonic foraminiferal delta c 13 record with total organic carbon and biomarker records for proboscia diatoms and haptophytes in marine sediments from offshore southeastern australia the planktonic foraminiferal delta c 13 record shows distinct minima during deglaciations and the marine isotope stage 4 3 transition tentatively suggesting that c 13 depleted so waters reached the coast of southeastern australia however it did not result in increased productivity during these periods instead the highest primary productivity period as indicated by total organic carbon and alkenone accumulation rates occurred during the last glacial maximum while proboscia diatoms mainly proliferated during interglacials and marine isotope stage 3 matching periods of increased diatom productivity in some sites of the eastern equatorial pacific our study suggests that increased primary productivity offshore southeastern australia was mainly due to stronger westerly winds during glacial periods while proboscia diatom productivity was probably controlled by the transport of silicic acid to this area

southern ocean seasonal temperature and subtropical front movement on the south tasman rise in the late quaternary 1 the subtropical front stf marking the northern boundary of the southern ocean has a steep gradient in sea surface temperature sst of approximately 4c over 0 5 of latitude presently in the region south of tasmania the stf lies nominally at 47s in the summer and 45s in the winter we present here sst reconstructions in a latitudinal transect of cores across the south tasman rise southeast of australia during the late quaternary sst reconstructions are based on two paleotemperature proxies alkenones and faunal assemblages which are used to assess past changes in sst in spring and summer the north south alignment in core locations allows reconstruction of movement of the stf over the last 100 ka surface water temperatures during the last glaciation in this region were 4c colder than today additional temperature changes greater in magnitude than 4c seen in individual cores can be attributed to changes in the water mass overlying the core site caused by the movement of the front across that location during the penultimate interglacial sst was 2c warmer and the stf was largely positioned south of 47s movement of the stf to the north occurred during cool climate periods such as the last marine isotope stages 3 and 4 in the last glaciation the front was at its farthest north position becoming pinned against the tasmanian landmass it moved south by 4 latitude to 47s in summer during the deglaciation but remained north of 45s in spring throughout the early deglaciation after 11 ka b p inferred invigoration of the east australia current appears to have pushed the stf seasonally south of the east tasman plateau until after 6 ka b p when it achieved its present configuration

improving past sea surface temperature estimates based on planktonic fossil faunas a new method of past sea surface temperature sst reconstruction based on the modern analog technique prell 1985 and on the indirect approach bartlein et al 1986 has been developed the revised analog method ram applied to planktonic foraminifera this technique leads to significant improvements in modern sst reconstruction with respect to former methods our estimates are characterized by much lower residuals and a better coverage of the observed sst range moreover the error of ram estimates of past ssts is lower than that associated with former reconstructions particularly at middle and high latitudes in low latitudes cold season ssts reconstructed by ram during glacials are 1 3 c lower than previously estimated our results tend thus to reconcile paleoestimates of glacial temperatures based on planktonic microfossils and on continental data in the tropics

a novel proxy for terrestrial organic matter in sediments based on branched and isoprenoid tetraether lipids we propose a novel tracer for terrestrial organic carbon in sediments based on the analysis of tetraether lipids using high performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry hplc ms analysis of terrestrial soil and peats shows that branched tetraether lipids are predominant in terrestrial environments in contrast to crenarchaeol the characteristic membrane lipid of non thermophilic crenarchaeota which is especially abundant in the marine and lacustrine environment based on these findings an index was developed the so called branched and isoprenoid tetraether bit index based on the relative abundance of terrestrially derived tetraether lipids versus crenarchaeol this bit index was applied to surface sediments from the angola basin where it was shown to trace the outflow of the congo river furthermore analyses of particulate organic matter from the north sea showed relatively higher bit indices in water column particulate organic matter near large river inputs a survey of globally distributed marine and lacustrine surface sediments shows that the bit index in these environments correlates with the relative fluvial input of terrestrial organic material making this index generally applicable the new proxy allows the rapid assessment of the fluvial input of terrestrial organic material in immature sediments up to 100 ma old

sea surface temperatures of the southwest pacific ocean during the last glacial maximum the southwest pacific ocean covers a broad range of surface water conditions ranging from warm salty water in the subtropical east australian current to fresher cold water in the circumpolar current using a new database of planktonic foraminifera assemblages ausmat f2 we demonstrate that the modern analog technique can be used to accurately reconstruct the magnitude of sea surfacetemperature sst in this region we apply this technique to data from 29 deep sea cores along a meridional transect of the southwest pacific ocean to estimate the magnitude of sst cooling during the last glacial maximum we find minimal cooling in the tropics 0 2 c moderate cooling in the subtropical midlatitudes 2 6 c and maximum cooling to the southeast of new zealand 6 10 c the magnitude of cooling at the sea surface from the tropics to the temperate latitudes is found to generally be less than cooling at the surface of adjacent land masses

postdepositional oxic degradation of alkenones implications for the measurement of palaeo sea surface temperatures free and bound long chain alkenones c37 2 and c37 3 in oxidized and unoxidized sections of four organic matter rich pliocene and miocene madeira abyssal plain turbidites one from ocean drilling program site 951b and three from site 952a were analyzed to determine the effect of severe post depositional oxidation on the value of u37k the profiles of both alkenones across the redox boundary show a preferential degradation of the c37 3 compared to the c37 2 compound because of the high initial u37k values and the way of calculating the u37k this degradation hardly influences the u37k profiles however for lower u37k values measured selective degradation would increase u37k up to 0 17 units equivalent to 5 c for most of the u37k band width much smaller degradation already increases u37k beyond the analytical error 0 017 units consequently for interpreting the u37k record in terms of past sea surface temperatures selective degradation needs serious consideration

systematic change of foraminiferal mg ca ratios across a strong salinity gradient abstract the mg ca ratio of foraminiferal calcite is an important proxy for estimating past ocean temperatures used in conjunction with 18 o of foraminiferal calcite it allows deconvolution of temperature and ice volume signals to infer past ocean temperatures and salinities assuming the relationship between seawater 18 o and salinity is known such work assumes that temperature is the only or at least the dominant environmental controller of foraminiferal mg ca the semi enclosed mediterranean sea where salinity varies from 36 to 40 psu over a seasonal temperature range of between only 5 c to 8 c provides a relevant setting to test this assumption outside the laboratory in this study planktonic foraminifera o universa g siphonifera g bulloides and g ruber white and pink were picked from 11 box core tops spanning the mediterranean salinity gradient and analysed for their trace element concentrations mg ca ratios are higher for the associated calcification temperatures than in other regions where calibrations have been conducted and correlate poorly with calcification temperature mg ca ratios are particularly high for samples from the eastern mediterranean where salinity is unusually high correlations of mg ca with the calcification salinity are statistically significant with mg ca changing by 15 59 per psu suggesting that salinity may act as a control on mg ca ratios in addition to the dominant temperature control we show that contamination by non carbonate material and diagenetic high mg carbonate overgrowths cannot account for the observed trend of increasing mg ca with salinity a relationship between mg ca and salinity is also suggested by re analysis of calibrations from open ocean settings these new mediterranean results are from a region with unusually high salinity but suggest that the effects of salinity on the mg ca palaeothermometer should be considered even in open ocean settings particularly where large salinity changes occurred in the past

coherent millennial scale patterns in u37k and tex86h temperature records during the penultimate interglacial to glacial cycle in the western mediterranean 1 the tex86h temperature proxy is a relatively new proxy based on crenarchaeotal lipids and has rarely been applied together with other temperature proxies in this study we applied the tex86h on a sediment core from the alboran sea western mediterranean core odp 977a covering the penultimate climate cycle that is from 244 to 130 ka and compared this with previously published sea surface temperatures derived from the u37k of alkenones of haptophyta and mg ca records of planktonic foraminifera the tex86h temperature record shows remarkably similar stadial interstadial patterns and abrupt temperature changes to those observed with the u37k palaeothermometer absolute tex86h temperature estimates are generally higher than those of u37k though this difference 3 c in 81 of the data points is mainly within the temperature calibration error for both proxies suggesting that crenarchaeota and haptophyta experienced similar temperature variations during occasional events 5 of the analyzed time span however the tex86h exhibits considerably higher absolute temperature estimates than the u37k comparison with mg ca records of planktonic foraminifera as well as other mediterranean tex86 and u37k records suggests that part of this divergence may be attributed to seasonal differences that is with tex86h reflecting mainly the warm summer season while u37k would show annual mean biases in the global calibration of both proxies or specific biases in the mediterranean are an alternative though less likely explanation despite differences between absolute tex86h and u37k temperatures the correlation between the two proxies r2 0 59 95 significance provides support for the occurrence of abrupt temperature variations in the western mediterranean during the penultimate interglacial to glacial cycle

sea surface temperatures around the australian margin and indian ocean during the last glacial maximum abstract we present new last glacial maximum lgm sea surface temperature sst maps for the oceans around australia based on planktonic foraminifera assemblages to provide the most reliable sst estimates we use the modern analog technique the revised analog method and artificial neural networks in conjunction with an expanded modern core top database all three methods produce similar quality predictions and the root mean squared error of the consensus prediction the average of the three under cross validation is only 0 77 c we determine lgm sst using data from 165 cores most of which have good age control from oxygen isotope stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates the coldest sst occurred at 20 500 1400 cal yr bp predating the maximum in oxygen isotope records at 18 200 1500 cal yr bp during the lgm interval we observe cooling within the tropics of up to 4 c in the eastern indian ocean and mostly between 0 and 3 c elsewhere along the equator the high latitudes cooled by the greatest degree a maximum of 7 9 c in the southwest pacific ocean our maps improve substantially on previous attempts by making higher quality temperature estimates using more cores and improving age control

tropical pacific ocean thermocline depth reconstructions for the last glacial maximum we evaluate the relationship between ten surface ocean 0 300 m hydrographic parameters and the spatial distribution of factor analyzed core top planktonic foraminiferal abundances in the tropical pacific ocean 24 n 24 s for core tops 3800 m the spatial distribution of the first three faunal factor loadings 88 of the variance are most highly correlated to subsurface variability mixed layer depth thermocline depth and resistant species percent rsp however rsp is not related to dissolution but is related to thermocline depth factor i mixed layer species g glutinata g ruber and factor iii g ruber can be distinguished from each other by low abundances of g glutinata in factor iii both assemblages spatially comprise the deep mixed layer region of the western tropical and equatorial pacific ocean but are associated with distinct water mass properties a combination of factor i and iii loadings shows a higher correlation to thermocline depth r 0 70 factor ii loadings dominated by thermocline dwelling species n dutertrei are most significantly correlated with the thermocline depth r 0 73 most factors show only marginally significant correlation to sea surface temperatures ssts indicating that sst is not the primary forcing factor on the planktonic foraminiferal species distributions in the tropical pacific a new transfer function was calculated to predict tropical pacific thermocline depth from planktonic foraminifera abundances using the imbrie kipp method ikm standard deviation of residuals 22 m 1 an additional 5 m error is attributed to low species counts in the core top database the modern analog technique mat was also used to predict thermocline depth standard deviation of residuals 21 m while last glacial maximum lgm thermocline depth changes by ikm and mat were generally within error estimated changes were geographically uniform suggesting an oceanographic response to climate forcing we estimate that the thermocline depth of the lgm was shallower than present by 20 m south of 8 s possibly due to a shift in the south pacific anticyclone to the northeast both the ikm and mat estimate a steeper east west thermocline slope along the equator suggesting that zonal wind stress walker circulation was intensified during the lgm collectively the thermocline estimates for the lgm suggest an equatorward compression of the climate zones in both hemispheres

orbital and millennial antarctic climate variability over the past 800 000 years a high resolution deuterium profile is now available along the entire european project for ice coring in antarctica dome c ice core extending this climate record back to marine isotope stage 20 2 800 000 years ago experiments performed with an atmospheric general circulation model including water isotopes support its temperature interpretation we assessed the general correspondence between dansgaard oeschger events and their smoothed antarctic counterparts for this dome c record which reveals the presence of such features with similar amplitudes during previous glacial periods we suggest that the interplay between obliquity and precession accounts for the variable intensity of interglacial periods in ice core records

membrane tetraether lipids of planktonic crenarchaeota in pliocene sapropels of the eastern mediterranean sea abstract the distribution of glycerol dibiphytanyl glycerol tetraethers gdgts predominantly derived from planktonic crenarchaeota were studied in three age equivalent pliocene sapropels as well as in the homogeneous intervals below and above the sapropel in both the homogeneous intervals and sapropels the dominance of gdgt 0 and crenarchaeol among the gdgts indicated their origin from planktonic crenarchaeota as it was found in many other marine sediments in the homogeneous intervals highest gdgt abundances normalized to toc were measured at the easternmost study site 967 of the eastern mediterranean sea and decreased at the central and western sites 969 and 964 within the three studied sapropels large variations in gdgt abundance were observed the newly established sea surface temperature sst proxy the tex 86 index derived from gdgts of planktonic crenarchaeota was used to estimate past sst comparison with previous obtained sst data using the alkenones from haptophyte algae revealed substantial differences whereas the u 37 k based ssts were almost constant at ca 25 c in both the homogeneous intervals and the sapropels the tex 86 based ssts were 26 29 c in the homogeneous intervals and decreased to 15 17 c in the sapropels the tex 86 based sst values outside the sapropel probably reflect summer sst based on a comparison with the present day mediterranean sea the surprisingly low tex 86 based sst estimates for the sapropels showed similarities with those obtained for the contemporary euxinic black sea the distribution of marine crenarchaeota in the modern black sea i e thriving at the deeper and colder chemocline suggests that this leads to a reduction in tex 86 resulting in artificially low sst estimates a similar situation is inferred for the pliocene eastern mediterranean during sapropel deposition since the sst anomaly co occurs with the build up of a shallow chemocline

the 5500 km long boundary flow off western and southern australia 1 the path of the shelf edge flow off southwestern australia is documented using results from satellite altimetry and sea surface temperature sst and a climatogical in situ analysis during austral winter a continuous current is shown to extend from its origin at north west cape to the southern tip of tasmania a distance of 5500 km satellite sst observations and surface buoy tracks confirm the location and continuity of the current trajectory while the leeuwin current is forced by the strong alongshore pressure gradient associated with the meridional portion of the western australian coastal boundary our results suggest that the essentially zonal shelf edge flow along the southern australian coast arises from the setup of coastal sea level by onshore ekman flow driven by the winter westerly wind and possibly a further alongshore pressure gradient the timing of these two different forcing mechanisms means that the west coast pressure gradient delivers the leeuwin current to the south coast just as the winds reverse and are thus able to maintain the eastward passage of the current the shelf edge flow consists of two main water masses a low salinity warm water type of tropical origin associated with the leeuwin current and a high salinity warm water inflow formed on the western end of the great australian bight continental shelf a naming convention is proposed the leeuwin current representing flow from north west cape to the great australian bight gab the south australian current between the eastern gab and western bass strait and the zeehan current off western tasmania

impact of lateral transport on organic proxies in the southern ocean lateral transport of fine grained organic carbon particles can complicate the interpretation of paleoclimate records based on organic proxies here we investigated the effect of lateral transport on newly developed temperature and soil organic matter proxies tex86 and bit index respectively in core md88 769 recovered from the south east indian ridge our results show that tex86 and bit records in comparison to diatom and foraminifera records were representative for more local climate changes while alkenones and n alkanes originated from distant areas by oceanic and atmospheric transport respectively this suggests that tex86 and bit paleoclimate records are primarily influenced by local conditions and less subjected to long distance lateral transport than other organic proxies in the southern ocean

pleistocene variability of the subtropical convergence at east tasman plateau evidence from planktonic foraminiferal mg ca odp site 1172a combined measurements of mg ca and stable oxygen isotopes in tests of the planktonic foraminifer g bulloides from ocean drilling program odp site 1172a east tasman plateau allowed us to reconstruct sea surface temperature sstmg ca sea surface salinity sss and hence variations in the subtropical convergence stc in the southwestern tasman sea over the last four major glacial interglacial changes during interglacials the commonly enhanced sstmg ca and sss correspond to a lowered marine productivity and a lowered terrigenous flux implying that the stc separating cool high nutrient subantarctic surface water from warm saline oligotrophic subtropical surface water and hence the band of zonal westerlies responsible for the eolian dust flux were located south of east tasman plateau the warm east australian current was well established during warm periods and propagated far south during glacial times sstmg ca and sss were lower while both marine productivity and eolian flux increased such conditions prevailed during glacial marine isotope stages mis 12 mis 10 and to a lesser degree mis 6 and implied the extended northward influence of subantarctic surfacewater and a shift of the stc to 44 s the overall climatic signal at site 1172a appears to be largely attenuated when compared to published climate records from comparable latitudes to the west and to the east sstmg ca amplitudes were more pronounced in the subantarctic indian ocean and at chatham rise they exhibit a consistent pattern suggesting that latitudinal shifts of the stc occurred synchronously in the subantarctic indian ocean and at chatham rise but were largely damped at east tasman plateau due to the influence of the east australian current

miocene to pliocene development of surface and subsurface temperatures in the benguela current system 1 the initiation of the benguela upwelling has been dated to the late miocene but estimates of its sea surface temperature evolution are not available this study presents data from ocean drilling program odp site 1085 recovered from the southern cape basin samples of the middle miocene to pliocene were analyzed for alkenone based u37k sstuk and glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether gdgt based tex86 temptex water temperature proxies in concordance with global cooling during the miocene sstuk and temptex exhibit a decline of about 8 c and 16 c respectively the temperature trends suggest an inflow of cold antarctic waters triggered by antarctic ice sheet expansion and intensification of southern hemisphere southeasterly winds a temperature offset between both proxies developed with the onset of upwelling which can be explained by differences in habitat alkenone producing phytoplankton live in the euphotic zone and record sea surface temperatures while gdgt producing thaumarchaeota are displaced to colder subsurface waters in upwelling influenced areas and record subsurface water temperatures we suggest that variations in subsurface water temperatures were driven by advection of cold antarctic waters and thermocline adjustments that were due to changes in north atlantic deep water formation a decline in surface temperatures an increased offset between temperature proxies and an increase in primary productivity suggest the establishment of the benguela upwelling at 10 ma during the messinian salinity crisis between 7 and 5 ma surface and subsurface temperature estimates became similar likely because of a strong reduction in atlantic overturning circulation while high total organic carbon contents suggest a biogenic bloom in the pliocene the offset between the temperature estimates and the cooling trend was reestablished

variations in mg ca and sr ca ratios of planktonic foraminifera caused by postdepositional dissolution evidence of shallow mg dependent dissolution a comparative study has been made of two species of planktonic foraminifera g tumida and g sacculifer in a depth transect on the ontong java plateau western equatorial pacific g tumida tests from core top sediments showed decreasing mg ca 2 65 1 25 mmol mol and sr ca 1 50 1 16 mmol mol ratios with increasing water depth 1600 4400 m while no such variation was found in g sacculifer tests in excess of 355 m average mg ca 3 6 mmol mol sr ca 1 4 mmol mol artificial dissolution of g tumida tests led to a decrease in both mg ca and sr ca but in g sacculifer there was no significant change in the ratios analyses by electron microprobe revealed that mg ca of the inner chamber calcite in g tumida tests was much higher than that of the calcite crust keel whereas sr ca was only slightly elevated there were no consistent spatial differences in either mg ca or sr ca for g sacculifer tests dissolution in the oceans gives rise to the removal of the chamber calcite in g tumida about 30 of the total calcite leaving the keel calcite although g tumida is thought of as a dissolution resistant form the majority of mg ca and sr ca depletion and chamber loss occurs above the lysocline it is also possible that much of the mg enriched gametogenic calcite has been lost by dissolution from g sacculifer above 1600 m mg content has a significant effect on the dissolution susceptibility of planktonic foraminifera calculations show that the saturation horizon for mg rich parts of tests may be elevated by several hundred meters compared with normal calcite

antarctic deglacial pattern in a 30 kyr record of sea surface temperature offshore south australia 1 comparison of ice cores from greenland and antarctica shows an asynchronous two step warming at these high latitudes during the last termination however the question whether this asynchrony extends to lower latitudes is unclear mainly due to the scarcity of paleorecords from the southern hemisphere new data from a marine core collected off south australia 36s allows a detailed reconstruction of sea surface temperatures over the last termination this confirms the existence of an antarctic type deglacial pattern and shows no indication of cooling associated with the northern hemisphere yd event the sst record also provides a new comparison with the more extensive paleoclimatic data available from continental australia this shows a strong climatic link between onshore and offshore records for australia and to southern hemisphere paleorecords we also show a progressive sst drop over the last 6 5 kyr not seen before for the australian region citation calvo e c pelejero p de deckker and g a logan 2007 antarctic deglacial pattern in a 30 kyr record of sea surface temperature offshore south australia geophys res lett 34 l13707 doi 10 1029 2007gl029937

glacial interglacial variability in atlantic meridional overturning circulation and thermocline adjustments in the tropical north atlantic article i nfo k 37 tex86 atlantic meridional overturning circulation thermocline changes in the strength of atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc are known to have profound impacts on global climate coupled modelling studies have suggested that on annual to multi decadal time scales a slowdown of amoc causes a deepening of the thermocline in the tropical atlantic however this process has been poorly constrained by sedimentary geochemical records here we reconstruct surface u k 37 index and thermocline tex h 86 water temperatures from the guinea plateau margin eastern tropical atlantic over the last two glacial interglacial cycles 192 kyr these paleotemperature records show that periods of reduced amoc as indicated by the 13 c benthic foraminiferal record from the same core coincide with a reduction in the near surface vertical temperature gradient demonstrating for the first time that amoc induced tropical atlantic thermocline adjustment exists on longer millennial time scales modelling results support the interpretation of the geochemical records and show that thermocline adjustment is particularly pronounced in the eastern tropical atlantic thus variations in amoc strength appear to be an important driver of the thermocline structure in the tropical atlantic from annual to multi millennial time scales

evidence for differential degradation of alkenones under contrasting bottom water oxygen conditions implication for paleotemperature reconstruction abstract the successful reconstruction of sea surface temperatures using alkenone paleothermometry u37k has relied on the premise that there is no significant differential degradation of alkenones with different states of unsaturation during diagenetic processes to test this assumption we conducted a comparative study of contemporary sediments in oxic and anoxic bottom waters from the santa monica basin offshore california long chain alkenones were quantified and sea surface temperature were calculated using the calibrated u37k t relationship of prahl et al 1988 our results show that temperature record from the oxic sediments is higher by as much as 4 c compared to those from time equivalent anoxic sediments as a result of differential degradation of long chain unsaturated alkenones and bioturbation mixing in the oxic sediments the differential degradation of c37 3 vs c37 2 alone could account for up to 2 5 c difference between these two records this finding has significant implication in the interpretation of paleo sea surface temperature data using alkenone paleothermometry

core top calibration of the lipid based u37k and tex86 temperature proxies on the southern italian shelf sw adriatic sea gulf of taranto abstract the mediterranean sea is at the transition between temperate and tropical air masses and as such of importance for studying climate change the gulf of taranto and adjacent sw adriatic sea are at the heart of this region their sediments are excellently suited for generating high quality environmental records for the last millennia with a sub decadal resolution the quality of these records is dependent on a careful calibration of the transfer functions used to translate the sedimentary lipid signals to the local environment here we examine and calibrate the u 37 k and tex 86 lipid based temperature proxies in 48 surface sediments and relate these to ambient sea surface temperatures and other environmental data the u 37 k based temperatures in surface sediments reflect winter spring sea surface temperatures in agreement with other studies demonstrating maximum haptophyte production during the colder season the tex 86 based temperatures for the nearshore sites also reflect winter sea surface temperatures however at the most offshore sites they correspond to summer sea surface temperatures additional lipid and environmental data including the distribution of the bit index and remote sensed chlorophyll a suggest a shoreward increase of the impact of seasonal and spatial variability in nutrients and control of planktonic archaeal abundance by primary productivity particle loading in surface waters and or overprint by a cold biased terrestrial tex 86 signal as such the offshore tex 86 values seem to reflect a true summer signal to the effect that offshore u 37 k and tex 86 reconstruct winter and summer temperature respectively and hence provide information on the annual temperature amplitude

application of artificial neural networks to paleoceanographic data abstract artificial neural networks are computer systems that have the ability to learn a set of output or target vectors from a set of input vectors learning is achieved by self adjustment of a set of parameters to minimize the error between a desired output and the actual network output we have explored the potential of this approach in paleoceanography by application of a neural network algorithm to a problem involving prediction of sea surface water temperatures from relative abundances of planktonic foraminifer species in the southern indian ocean we employed a backpropagation bp network to assess how well it was able to predict the actual summer and winter surface water temperatures we compared the results with those obtained from statistical methods previously used for temperature predictions imbrie kipp transfer functions the modern analog technique and soft independent modelling of class analogy the efficiency of predictions was tested using the leaving one out technique in which each of the observations in the data set is left out one at a time while the remaining observations are used to generate a predictor the accuracy of the predictor is then tested on the observation left out by comparison with its actual value a set of tests using 1 2 3 4 5 and 10 neurons processing elements in a 3 layer bp network showed that a network with 3 neurons gave the smallest errors of prediction for both summer and winter temperatures 0 71 and 0 76 respectively corresponding errors for the statistical pattern recognition techniques ranged between 1 01 and 1 26 for summer temperatures and 1 05 1 13 for winter temperatures hence predictions of paleotemperatures from new data on planktonic foraminifer relative abundances in the southern indian ocean may be made with a precision of 0 7 0 8 c using the bp network and 1 0 1 3 c using the statistical pattern recognition procedures the bp network was thus the most successful among the methods employed here for temperature predictions artificial neural networks may therefore be seen as a viable alternative to more conventional approaches to data analysis in paleoceanography

alkenone sea surface temperature in the southern ocean for the last two deglaciations a piston core taken from the tasman plateau in the southern ocean has been studied for organic compounds to reconstruct the late pleistocene marine environments here we report paleo sea surface temperature sst for the last two deglaciations using the unsaturation degree of alkenones u k 37 preserved in the marine sediments the u k 37 record indicates that the sst was at least 4 c lower than the present sst at the last glacial maximum lgm and the amplitude of paleo sst is at most 5 2 c from the penultimate glacial mis 6 to the last interglacial warm period the eemian our results also demonstrate that the eemian warm period in the southern ocean lasted only 3 000 years followed by a sharp cooling at around 120 kyr bp the sharp cooling in the southern ocean seemed to occur a few millennia 2 3 kyrs before the beginning of continental ice sheet growth

glacial interglacial sea surface temperature changes across the subtropical front east of new zealand based on alkenone unsaturation ratios and foraminiferal assemblages 0 are compared to those derived from foraminiferal assemblages using the modern analog technique in two of these cores reconstructions of sst in core tops and holocene sediments agree well with modern average summer temperatures of 18 c in subtropical waters and 14 c in subpolar waters with a 4 5 c gradient across the front down core u37 k 0 sst estimates indicate that the regional summer sst was 4 5 c cooler during the last glaciation with an sst of 10 c in subpolar waters and an sst of 14 c in subtropical waters temperature reconstructions from foraminiferal assemblages agree with those derived from alkenones for the holocene in subtropical waters reconstructions also agree with a glacial cooling of 4 to 14 c in contrast reconstructions for subantarctic pre holocene waters indicate a cooling of 8 c with glacial age warm season water temperatures of 6 c thus the alkenones suggest the glacial temperature gradient across the front was the same or reduced slightly to 3 5 4 c whereas foraminiferal reconstructions suggest it doubled to 8 c our results support previous work indicating that the stf remained fixed over the chatham rise during the last glacial maximum however the differing results from the two techniques require additional explanation a change in euphotic zone temperature profiles seasonality of growth or preferred growth depth must have affected the temperatures recorded by these biologically based proxies regardless of the specific reason a differential response to the environmental changes between the two climate regimes by the organisms on which the estimates are based suggests increased upwelling associated with increased winds and or a shallowing of the thermocline associated with increased stratification of the surface layer in the last glaciation index terms 4267 oceanography general paleoceanography 4850 oceanography biological and chemical organic marine chemistry 1050 geochemistry marine geochemistry 4835 4850 1055 geochemistry organic geochemistry keywords paleoceanography sea surface temperature alkenones southern ocean last glacial maximum

a study of the alkenone tex86 and planktonic foraminifera in the benguela upwelling system implications for past sea surface temperature estimates suspended particulate matter from seawater and core top sediments were collected during 2003 meteor cruise m57 1 in january february from the continental margin off western south africa for analysis of alkenones glycerol dibiphytanyl glycerol tetraether gdgt lipids and planktonic foraminifera alkenone analysis of suspended particulates in seawater and core top sediments indicates that u37k temperatures were representative of annual mean sea surface temperature in contrast gdgt analysis suggests that tex86 temperatures are cold biased due to upward transports of gdgts produced below the mixed layer the analysis of plankton tow samples revealed that the 18o of globorotalia inflata in core top sediments could be biased toward lower temperatures due to subsurface calcification accordingly our study shows that each paleotemperature proxy may record different temperature signals in the benguela upwelling system emphasizing the general need to constrain potential biases in each proxy for better interpreting paleoclimate records

a study of the tex86 paleothermometer in the water column and sediments of the santa barbara basin california 1 particulate organic matter collected during a 2 year period as part of an ongoing sediment trap study and a high resolution sediment record from 1850 to 1987 a d from the santa barbara basin were analyzed for tex86 a temperature proxy based on marine crenarchaeotal membrane lipids highest fluxes of crenarchaeotal lipids in the water column were found in may june 1996 and from october 1996 to january 1997 and in general showed a good correlation with mass fluxes tex86 reconstructed temperatures from the sediment trap series ranged from 8 to 11 c and were usually substantially lower than sea surface temperatures sst indicating that unlike in previous studies the tex86 corresponds to subsurface temperatures likely between 100 and 150 m tex86 temperature variations observed in trap samples were not coupled to changes in sst or deep water temperatures and only to some degree with crenarchaeotal lipid fluxes this suggests that a complex combination of different depth origins and seasonal growth periods of crenarchaeota contributed to the variations in tex86 signal during the annual cycle tex86 temperatures in the two sediment cores studied 8 13 c were also substantially lower than those of instrumental sst records 14 17 5 c confirming that tex86 records a subsurface temperature signal in the santa barbara basin this result highlights the importance of performing calibration studies using sediment traps and core tops before applying the tex86 temperature proxy in a given study area

fast forward modeling of compressional arrival slowness logs in high angle and horizontal wells abstractcompressional p and shear s sonic propagation modes are routinely measured with modern borehole acoustic logging instruments slownesses inverse of velocity of p and s modes provide information on compressional and shear slownesses of rock formations surrounding the wellbore respectively when a high angle well penetrates horizontal thin layers the layers function as waveguides for the propagation of sonic waves layer trapped and borehole guided waves interfere with each other giving rise to abnormal amplitude variations and phase discontinuity in the time waveforms acquired at receivers consequently waveforms measured across the receiver array often exhibit low semblance which renders conventional waveform semblance based processing techniques inadequate for reliable estimation of formation slowness instead of calculating waveform semblance we invoke compressional first arrival times to describe the propagation properties of the p mode in high angle and horizontal ha hz wells a

pronounced subsurface cooling of north atlantic waters off northwest africa during dansgaard oeschger interstadials millennial scale atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc variability has often been invoked to explain the dansgaard oeschger do events however the underlying causes responsible for millennial scale amoc variability are still debated high resolution u37k and tex86h temperature records for the last 50 kyr obtained from the tropical northeast ne atlantic core geob7926 2 20 13 n 18 27 w 2500 m water depth show that distinctive do type subsurface i e below the mixed layer 20 m water depth temperature oscillations occurred with amplitudes of up to 8 c in the tropical ne atlantic during marine isotope stage 3 mis3 statistical analyses reveal a positive relationship between the reconstructed substantial cooling of subsurface waters and prominent surface warming over greenland during do interstadials general circulation model gcm simulations without external freshwater forcing the mechanism often invoked in explaining do events demonstrate similar anti phase correlations between amoc and pronounced ne atlantic subsurface temperatures under glacial climate conditions together with our paleoproxy dataset this suggests that the vertical temperature structure and associated changes in amoc were key elements governing do events during the last glacial

molecular stratigraphy a new tool for climatic assessment variations in sea surface temperatures over the past 500 000 years are inferred from the relative abundance behaviour of two organic compounds c37 alkenones over the upper 8 metres of a sediment core from the eastern equatorial atlantic this molecular record ascribed to contributions from prymnesiophyte algae correlates well with the variations in the 18 signal for the calcareous skeletons of certain planktonic foraminifera thus providing the first demonstration of a new stratigraphical technique which may be especially valuable where methods based on carbonate 18 fail

absence of cooling in new zealand and the adjacent ocean during the younger dryas chronozone as the climate warmed at the end of the last glacial period a rapid reversal in temperature the younger dryas yd event briefly returned much of the north atlantic region to near full glacial conditions the event was associated with climate reversals in many other areas of the northern hemisphere and also with warming over and near antarctica however the expression of the yd in the mid to low latitudes of the southern hemisphere and the southwest pacific region in particular is much more controversial here we show that the waiho loop advance of the franz josef glacier in new zealand was not a yd event as previously thought and that the adjacent ocean warmed throughout the yd

architecture and morphology of the outer segment of a mixed tide and wave dominated incised valley revealed by hr seismic reflection profiling the paleo charente river france abstract we present new single channel high resolution seismic reflection profiles ground truthed by vibrocore data dedicated to the outer segment of an incised valley connected to the charente river french atlantic coast the present day charente is located about 50 km northward of the well known gironde estuary those river mouths are comparable in terms of marine hydrodynamic parameters but strongly differ by their water discharge and catchment area seismic data are processed and interpreted to develop a three dimensional seismic stratigraphic framework for the charente incised valley fill the channel network of the drowned charente valley is evidenced for the first time and shows a seaward distributary pattern which is likely influenced by neotectonic control incision depth and width of the charente and gironde incised valleys are similar supporting the idea that correlation between valley width and modern hydrology is poor the internal geometry of the charente valley fill shows in seismic lines high to middle angle dipping reflectors at the base and a top of sequence with an intervening low angle seismic unit this pattern is associated with a landward migration of the seismic unit depocentres sedimentary facies of the main seismic units suggests an upward and landward shift from estuarine mixed sands and muds to estuary mouth massive sands topped by fine marine sands the described sedimentary and seismic characters and the holocene age of the valley fill near the present day charente river mouth suggest that the drowned charente valley infill mainly corresponds to a single transgressive sequence emplaced during the last sea level rise beyond the local interest the dense seismic grid recorded across the charente drowned valley gives a seismic validation for the model of large valley fill proposed by ashley and sheridan ashley g m sheridan r e 1994 depositional model for valley fills on a passive continental margin in r w dalrymple r j boyd b a zaitlin eds incised valley systems origin and sedimentary sequences sepm soc sediment geol spec publ tulsa vol 51 pp 285 301 we propose that high low high internal reflection pattern succession represents the seismic sandwich in reference to the ashley and sheridan ashley g m sheridan r e 1994 depositional model for valley fills on a passive continental margin in r w dalrymple r j boyd b a zaitlin eds incised valley systems origin and sedimentary sequences sepm soc sediment geol spec publ tulsa vol 51 pp 285 301 sedimentary sandwich such seismic pattern is also recognized in the gironde valley mar geol 175 2001 183

millennial scale sea surface temperature changes in the eastern mediterranean nile river delta region over the last 27 000 years 1 in this study we utilize two organic geochemical proxies the u37k index and tex86 to examine past sea surface temperatures sst from a site located near the nile river delta in the eastern mediterranean em sea the u37k and tex86 records generally are in agreement and indicate sst ranges of 14 c 26 c and 14 c 28 c respectively during the last 27 cal ka during the holocene tex86 based sst estimates are usually higher than u37k based sst estimates which is likely due to seasonal differences between the timing of the haptophyte and crenarchaeota blooms in the em and is related to the onset of the modern flow regime of the nile river both records show that sst varied on centennial to millennial timescales in response to global climate events i e cooling during the last glacial maximum lgm heinrich event 1 h1 and the younger dryas yd and warming during the bolling allerod and in the early holocene during deposition of sapropel s1 the h1 cooling was particularly severe and is marked by a drop in sst of 4 5 c in comparison to pre h1 sst with temperatures 1 c cooler than during the lgm in contrast to high latitude and western mediterranean records which indicate both an abrupt onset and termination of the yd event the transition from the yd to the holocene was much more gradual in the em

comparison of organic uk 37 texh86 ldi and faunal proxies foraminiferal assemblages for reconstruction of late quaternary sea surface temperature variability from offshore southeastern australia several proxies have been developed to reconstruct past sea surface temperature sst but different proxies may reflect temperatures of different seasons and each proxy is characterized by certain uncertainties therefore a multiproxy approach is preferred to precisely reconstruct sst here we reconstruct sst of the ocean offshore southeastern australia murray canyons area for the last 135 ka using three independent organic proxies texh86 based on glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers gdgts uk 37 based on alkenones and ldi based on long chain diols in addition to foraminiferal faunal assemblages the organic proxy records show similar trends with the highest temperature 21 c for uk 37 and texh86 and 25 c for ldi during the last interglacial and lowest temperature 8 c for texh86 10 c for uk 37 and 12 c for ldi during the last glacial maximum however the differences in absolute sst estimates obtained by the organic proxies varied over time with differences of up to 9 c between ldi and texh86 the seasonal sst reconstructions based on the modern analogue of foraminiferal assemblages also show similar trends as the organic proxies with highest temperatures during the last interglacial 23 c for the warmest month sst 20 c for mean annual and 18 c for the coolest month and lowest temperature during the last glacial maximum 14 c for the warmest month 11 c for mean annual and 9 c for the coolest month down core comparison between the reconstructed ssts of the organic and inorganic proxies shows that ldi inferred temperatures compare well with the temperature of the warmest month texh86 with the temperature of the coolest month and uk 37 with mean annual temperature an increase in texh86 sst estimates relative to those of other proxies during deglaciations and interglacials suggests that either winter temperatures rapidly warmed possibly due to an invigoration of the leeuwin current over the core site or there was a change in the growth season of the thaumarchaeota the source organism of gdgts our study shows the benefits of a multiproxy approach in the interpretation of sst proxies leading to a more robust knowledge of past ocean temperature changes

large scale reorganization of ocean currents offshore western australia during the late quaternary abstract the history of coastal surface currents in the eastern indian ocean over the last 130 kyr has been studied through the application of the fi 2 transfer function to planktic foraminifera in deep sea cores in a n s transect offshore western australia the concept of sea surface temperature sst gradient residuals is the amount by which the sea surface temperature gradient of a given time differs from that in the modern sea the sst gradient residuals for several episodes of climate extremes in the late quaternary the last glacial maximum 20 kyr b p the last interglacial maximum 122 120 kyr b p and at the end of the penultimate glaciation 130 kyr b p indicate that areas north of 18 s off western australia have changed very little during the extremes in climate over the last 130 kyr while south of 18 s there have been significant changes in surface water temperatures large areas of anomalously cool surface water were established off north west cape 22 s 24 s during both glacial and interglacial extremes these reflect the increased influence of the west australian current on the surface water circulation during the last glacial maximum and at the end of the penultimate glaciation cold sea surface temperature anomalies were established near to the coast indicating that the leeuwin current did not warm the coastal zone as it does today during the last interglacial maximum the leeuwin current flowed as an intensified current in a narrow zone close to the coast but did not significantly warm surface waters offshore as far as 20 25 s where a zone of cold water was maintained