strengthening of north american dust sources during the late pliocene 2 7 ma here we present orbitally resolved records of terrestrial higher plant leaf wax input to the north atlantic over the last 3 5 ma based on the accumulation of long chain n alkanes and n alkanl 1 ols at iodp site u1313 these lipids are a major component of dust even in remote ocean areas and have a predominantly aeolian origin in distal marine sediments our results demonstrate that around 2 7 million years ago ma coinciding with the intensification of the northern hemisphere glaciation nhg the aeolian input of terrestrial material to the north atlantic increased drastically since then during every glacial the aeolian input of higher plant material was up to 30 times higher than during interglacials the close correspondence between aeolian input to the north atlantic and other dust records indicates a globally uniform response of dust sources to quaternary climate variability although the amplitude of variation differs among areas we argue that the increased aeolian input at site u1313 during glacials is predominantly related to the episodic appearance of continental ice sheets in north america and the associated strengthening of glaciogenic dust sources evolutional spectral analyses of the n alkane records were therefore used to determine the dominant astronomical forcing in north american ice sheet advances these results demonstrate that during the early pleistocene north american ice sheet dynamics responded predominantly to variations in obliquity 41 ka which argues against previous suggestions of precession related variations in northern hemisphere ice sheets during the early pleistocene

the southern ocean s biological pump during the last glacial maximum ice core records from antarctica show large 80 ppm and regular climate related changes in atmospheric co2 with minimum values during glacial periods and maximum values during peak interglacials the suggested role of the southern ocean in driving these changes is based on either the potential for increased utilization of surface nutrients or the potential for decreased ventilation of deep waters during glacial times several recent studies have invoked increased stratification of the southern ocean to explain lower glacial atmospheric co2 levels in terms of reduced exchange of co2 between the deep sea and the atmosphere a northward displacement and or substantial weakening of the westerly winds during glacial periods are implicit in the scenarios that invoke enhanced stratification however both circulation models and proxy results argue against a weakening of the westerlies in fact the mean flow of the antarctic circumpolar current and wind driven upwelling during the last glacial maximum lgm are thought to be at least as vigorous as those which exist today given these boundary conditions we offer two competing scenarios for ecosystem structure and export production of the glacial southern ocean the first scenario satisfies all proxy records for nutrient utilization and phytoplankton growth rate and requires increased relative to today nitrate utilization south of the antarctic polar front apf by phytoplankton other than diatoms together with a shift in the zone of maximum diatom growth from south interglacials to north glacials of the apf the second scenario has reduced growth of all phytoplankton species south of the apf during glacials and a shift in the zone of maximum export production to the north of the polar front the principal weakness of the first scenario is that there is little sedimentary evidence to support the increased export of particulate organic carbon required by the inferred increase in nitrate utilization south of the apf the principal weakness of the second scenario is that it requires a change in the isotopic fractionation of nitrogen by phytoplankton growing south of the polar front for reasons presently unknown the southern ocean s biological pump at the lgm has yet to be characterized unequivocally

glacial interglacial terrigenous provenance in the southeastern atlantic ocean the importance of deep water sources and surface currents identifying terrigenous sources in deep sea sediments may re veal temporal trends in paleocirculation and the relative role of eolian upwelled and hemipelagic fe sources to surface waters bulk elemental and isotopic geochemistry of deep sea sediments recovered during ocean drilling program leg 177 in the south eastern atlantic sector of the southern ocean reveal several im portant aspects of paleocirculation and terrigenous provenance the sites studied span 43 53 s and represent different oceano graphic settings relative to regional hydrography and sediment type bulk sediment geochemistry indicates that terrigenous prov enance varied over the past 600 k y site 1089 the northernmost site exhibits clear glacial interglacial variability in provenance while provenance appears to vary regardless of climate state at the more southerly sites site 1093 and 1094 nd and sr isotopes and sm nd ratios of the terrigenous fraction indicate that study sites have geochemically distinguishable provenance nd and sr isotopes further suggest that sites 1089 and 1094 both contain detrital com ponents that originated in south america over the past 30 k y however site 1089 is also influenced by southern african sources and the strength of the agulhas current the nd data support a more hemipelagic source for the terrigenous material rather than an eolian source based on comparisons with antarctic ice core data and known sea ice extent

benthic remineralization and burial of biogenic sio2 caco3 organic carbon and detrital material in the southern ocean along a transect at 170 west abstract we investigated the composition recycling and mass accumulation rates of sediments along a transect in the southern ocean located from 66 s to 57 s at 170 w this transect also corresponds to the location of a sediment trap mooring line the sediments at the seven sites studied range from largely terrigenous material to nearly pure 90 biogenic silica caco3 is a minor but persistent component at most sites mass accumulation rates have been determined on the basis of excess 230th in the sediments i e 230th normalized accumulation rates the influence of redistribution of sediments on the sea floor has been estimated from 14c analyses the recycling of material delivered to the sediments has been characterized on the basis of pore water studies that make extensive use of both in situ sampling and shipboard extractions the influence of the highly variable rates of input of particulate matter that characterize much of the southern ocean upon pore water gradients and fluxes across the sediment water interface has been considered we find only poor correspondence between bsio2 burial fraction burial particulate flux a quantifiable measure of preservation efficiency and bsio2 particulate rain along the transect however preservation does appear to be closely linked to a combination of sedimentation rate and particulate rain the burial fraction of bsio2 is small relative to benthic rain 5 19 despite the small fraction buried burial flux normalized to sedimentation rate 1 2 appears to provide a very consistent means of predicting benthic particulate rain over a large range of rain rates including data from a number of different studies and environments at sites with bsio2 rain 250 mmol m 2 yr 1 the average difference between predicted and observed rain is 25 30 such rain rates occur in many marine areas particularly the southern ocean with the result that this relationship potentially provides a means of estimating bsio2 benthic rain over prolonged periods in the past on the basis of readily measured sediment parameters at the southern most deep ocean station the particulate flux was characterized by an extremely high corg caco3 ratio 10 but this high ratio does not appear to have a substantial influence on caco3 burial caco3 is preserved in the sediments at this site despite a particulate flux with a 10 fold excess of corg above that required for complete dissolution in the sediments the unexpectedly high preservation of caco3 is due largely to the very steep corg oxidation rate profile at this site as a result a large fraction of the organic matter oxidized in the sediments does so in close proximity to the sediment water interface where most of the metabolic co2 is neutralized by co32 from the overlying water rather than by the dissolution of sedimentary caco3 diagenetic modeling indicates that at several of the stations the remineralization fluxes of carbonate species across the sediment water interface may not have been at steady state as a result of the highly pulsed nature of particulate rain in this environment we estimate that at the time of our sampling it is possible that near interface fluxes could have been a factor of 1 6 2 times the annual average at every site on the transect the burial fluxes of detrital material are substantially greater than the detrital particulate rain measured in the sediment traps by as much as a factor of 40 detrital burial is bimodal being greatest at the southern and northern extremes of the transect we postulate that the excess of burial over particulate rain in the south reflects the contribution of ice rafted debris at these high latitudes increases in the supply at the northern stations must have a different source we believe that the excess at these stations is material eroded from the sea floor to the west possibly on the campbell plateau and advected by currents to the northern portion of the transect at depths below the shallow traps

simulation of glacial interglacial cycles by simple relaxation models consistency with observational results the model of paillard and parrenin earth planet sci lett 227 263 271 2004 was modified to obtain a closer fit to 18o and co2 time series for the last 800 kyr the model performance can be improved if its co2 sensitivity to i65 insolation is eliminated and if different response times are assumed for ablation accumulation of ice correlations between simulated and experimental time series for co2 and ice volume v increase from 0 59 and 0 63 to 0 79 and 0 88 respectively according to these models terminations are produced by i65 amplification through co2 t and t co2 feedbacks in synergy with an extra co2 contribution from the deep ocean this contribution is strongly dependent on ice sheet extent and ice volume or alternatively co2 concentration which is a good proxy of antarctic temperature but is insensitive to southern ocean so insolation on 21 february i60 change of deep so state may be the order parameter for nonlinear deglacial changes according to these models 100 kyr periodicity of glacial cycles arises from the characteristic time of antarctic ice sheet advance to the continental slope

evidence from authigenic uranium for increased productivity of the glacial subantarctic ocean authigenic uranium is precipitated in reducing sediments and therefore responds both to changes in particulate organic carbon flux to the sediment and to changes in the oxygen concentration of bottom waters by examining a large number of cores over a wide latitudinal and depth range in the atlantic sector of the southern ocean we hope to distinguish between a predominantly productivity driven authigenic u signal and a circulation or sediment focusing signal we find little to no authigenic u in holocene sediments throughout the south atlantic ocean glacial sediments north of 40 s lack authigenic u whereas sediments from the subantarctic zone show substantial enrichments in authigenic u relative to the holocene up to 5 3 ppm the widespread distribution of glacial u enrichment even in cores with no glacial interglacial change in mass accumulation rate implies that u deposition was not caused by an increased supply of organic carbon via sediment focusing authigenic u and organic carbon in a shallow core 1000 m from the subantarctic region show the same glacial increase found in the deep cores because this site was well ventilated during the last glacial maximum its record provides further evidence that increased glacial productivity of the subantarctic region contributed to the high concentrations of authigenic u found in the glacial sections of deep cores

southern ocean sea ice extent productivity and iron flux over the past eight glacial cycles sea ice and dust flux increased greatly in the southern ocean during the last glacial period palaeorecords provide contradictory evidence about marine productivity in this region but beyond one glacial cycle data were sparse here we present continuous chemical proxy data spanning the last eight glacial cycles 740 000 years from the dome c antarctic ice core these data constrain winter sea ice extent in the indian ocean southern ocean biogenic productivity and patagonian climatic conditions we found that maximum sea ice extent is closely tied to antarctic temperature on multi millennial timescales but less so on shorter timescales biological dimethylsulphide emissions south of the polar front seem to have changed little with climate suggesting that sulphur compounds were not active in climate regulation we observe large glacial interglacial contrasts in iron deposition which we infer reflects strongly changing patagonian conditions during glacial terminations changes in patagonia apparently preceded sea ice reduction indicating that multiple mechanisms may be responsible for different phases of co2 increase during glacial terminations we observe no changes in internal climatic feedbacks that could have caused the change in amplitude of antarctic temperature variations observed 440 000 years ago

atlantic core top calibration of the u37k index as a sea surface palaeotemperature indicator abstract a field calibration of the uk index with sea surface temperature is discussed through analysis of an extensive suite of surface sediments n 109 from the northeastern atlantic 2 s 75 n values of u 37 k are compared with sea surface temperatures for overlying waters measured at different depths and seasons to obtain a correlation suitable for palaeotemperature reconstructions the best fit is obtained using surface 0 m temperatures corresponding to caloric winter and autumn months however the annual average spring and summer surface temperature equations also have high correlation coefficients and are also appropriate for climatic studies the results further validate the general applicability of the u 37 k as a climatic proxy because the calibration equations are valid over a wide range of surface water temperatures 0 28 c for different algal populations and are representative of the average contribution of alkenones to sediments as found in sediment cores

change in atmospheric mineral aerosols in response to climate last glacial period preindustrial modern and doubled carbon dioxide climates desert dust simulations generated by the national center for atmospheric research s community climate system model for the current climate are shown to be consistent with present day satellite and deposition data the response of the dust cycle to last glacial maximum preindustrial modern and doubled carbon dioxide climates is analyzed only natural non land use related dust sources are included in this simulation similar to some previous studies dust production mainly responds to changes in the source areas from vegetation changes not from winds or soil moisture changes alone this model simulates a 92 33 and 60 change in dust loading for the last glacial maximum preindustrial and doubled carbon dioxide climate respectively when impacts of carbon dioxide fertilization on vegetation are included in the model terrestrial sediment records from the last glacial maximum compiled here indicate a large underestimate of deposition in continental regions probably due to the lack of simulation of glaciogenic dust sources in order to include the glaciogenic dust sources as a first approximation we designate the location of these sources and infer the size of the sources using an inversion method that best matches the available data the inclusion of these inferred glaciogenic dust sources increases our dust flux in the last glacial maximum from 2 1 to 3 3 times current deposition

origin of magnetic mineral concentration variation in the southern ocean 1 in the southern ocean magnetic mineral concentration increases in glacial periods the variation pattern closely resembles eolian dust flux records from antarctic ice cores but the cause of the linkage remains unclear as the dust flux is too small for the source of terrigenous materials in the southern ocean we have conducted an environmental magnetic study of late pleistocene sediments from the south indian ocean to investigate the origin of the magnetic concentration changes biogenic magnetites can be detected using the characteristics of almost no magnetostatic interactions and narrow coercivity distribution reflecting occurrence of single domain magnetites in a chain we interpret that a non interacting component on first order reversal curve diagrams and low coercivity components with small dispersion from isothermal remanent magnetization irm component analyses represent biogenic magnetites and that the interacting and middle coercivity components represent terrigenous maghemites the ratio of anhysteretic remanent magnetization susceptibility to saturation irm reflects relative abundance of the biogenic and terrigenous components it was revealed that biogenic magnetites are a dominant constituent of the magnetic minerals in glacials the abundance of both biogenic and terrigenous components increased with increased proportions of the latter increased ocean productivity in glacials is suggested from increased proportions of biogenic magnetites with elongated morphologies indicative of less oxic conditions and increased sedimentation rates these observations suggest that the increased magnetic concentration in glacials in the southern ocean may be explained by iron fertilization the production of biogenic magnetites was enhanced associated with increased ocean productivity which was fueled by increased eolian dust flux

extensive phytoplankton blooms in the atlantic sector of the glacial southern ocean 1 the sources and sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide over glacial interglacial cycles are under debate variation in productivity of the antarctic circumpolar current acc could potentially play a significant role but current interpretations of sedimentary geochemical proxies suggest that glacial productivity was not higher than today we present areal and down core distribution patterns of previously overlooked diatom resting spores that indicate the occurrence of extensive phytoplankton blooms across the entire atlantic sector of the acc particularly in the seasonal ice zone siz linked to higher iron input during the last glacial sea ice acts as an effective transporter of iron and enhances its bioavailability the dominance of the deep living radiolarian cyladophora davisiana in glacial siz sediments indicates that organic carbon export to mesopelagic depths was at least tenfold higher than today

past hydrographic and climatic changes in the subantarctic zone of the south atlantic the pleistocene record from odp site 1090 abstract pleistocene summer sea surface temperatures ssst have been reconstructed on a composite core section recovered in the subantarctic zone of the southern ocean from planktonic foraminifers applying the modern analog technique the composite consists of core ps2489 2 and the sections recovered at odp site 1090 and documents the last 1 83 ma three distinct climatic periods can be identified that mirror the pleistocene development of the southern ocean hydrography cold climatic conditions prevailed at 43 s during glacial as well as during interglacial periods during the early pleistocene 1 83 0 87 ma indicating a northward shift of isotherms that characterize the present day polar front zone by about 7 of latitude evidence shows a strong linkage between southern ocean and low latitude climate during that interval time between the mid pleistocene revolution ca 0 9 ma and the mid brunhes event ca 0 4 ma we observe higher amplitude fluctuations in the ssst between glacial and interglacial periods corresponding to the temperature range between the present polar front and subantarctic front these climatic variations have been related to changes in the northern hemisphere ice sheets the past 0 4 ma are characterized by strong ssst variations of up to 8 c between glacials and interglacials only during the climatic optima stages 11 3 9 3 7 5 7 1 5 5 and the early holocene ssst exceeded present ssst at the core locality 10 2 c although the carbonate dissolution record exhibits high variability during the pleistocene it can be shown that ssst estimates were not significantly biased the mid brunhes dissolution cycle as well as the mid pleistocene enhanced carbonate preservation appear to belong to a global long term variability in carbonate preservation

a basinwide estimate of vertical mixing in the upper pycnocline spreading of bomb tritium in the north pacific ocean abstract the vertical diffusivity kv in the upper half kilometer of the north pacific subtropical pycnocline is estimated from observations of the spreading rate of anthropogenic tritium the calculation is based on approximately 300 ocean tritium profiles made since tritium was introduced to the atmosphere via bomb testing in the 1960s the data coverage does not permit detailed mapping of tritium penetration especially in the sparsely sampled western pacific for this reason and to minimize advective effects the spreading rate is averaged within the closed streamlines of the subtropical gyre spanning 5 n to 40 n the result kv 1 5 0 7 10 5 m2 s 1 is consistent with inferences from microstructure and purposefully released tracer measurements in the north atlantic confirming that the spatially averaged rate of mixing in the upper pycnocline is substantially lower than the canonical munk estimate for the lower pycnocline

similar glacial and interglacial export bioproductivity in the atlantic sector of the southern ocean multiproxy evidence and implications for glacial atmospheric co2 we present time series of export productivity proxy data including 230thex normalized deposition rates rain rates of 10be dissolution corrected biogenic ba and biogenic opal as well as authigenic u concentrations which are complemented by rain rates of total detrital fe and sea ice indicating diatom abundances from five sediment cores across the atlantic sector of the southern ocean covering the past 150 000 years the results suggest that 10be rain rates and authigenic u concentration cannot serve as quantitative paleoproductivity proxies because they have also been influenced by detrital particle fluxes in the case of 10be and bulk sedimentation rates sediment focussing and deep water oxygenation in the case of u the combined results of the remaining productivity proxies of this study rain rates of biogenic opal and biogenic ba in those sections without authigenic u and other previously published proxy data from the southern ocean 231pa 230th and nitrogen isotopes suggest that a combination of sea ice cover shallow remineralization depth and stratification of the glacial water column south of the present position of the antarctic polar front and possibly fe fertilization north of it have been the main controlling factors of export paleoproductivity in the southern ocean over the last 150 000 years an overall glacial increase of export paleoproductivity is not supported by the data implying that bioproductivity variations in the southern ocean are unlikely to have contributed to the major glacial atmospheric co2 drawdown observed in ice cores

benefits of freeze drying sediments for the analysis of total chlorins and alkenone concentrations in marine sediments abstract long chain alkenones and photosynthetic pigment derivatives chlorins are commonly employed biomarkers in the reconstruction of past sea surface temperatures ssts and organic carbon export from the surface to the deep ocean for these studies marine sediment samples are often available which have been air dried or freeze dried given that these are common methods for removing water from sediments prior to microfossil analysis we compared both drying procedures by analysing samples from two sediment cores odp 1087 southeast atlantic and m36 2 mc435 north atlantic we found that significant losses of chlorins 25 and alkenones up to 75 occur with air drying relative to freeze drying changes in the composition of pigments are also likely the alkenone unsaturation index u 37 k is sensitive to the drying method showing an increase of up to 0 02 units relative to freeze drying however this represents a maximum increase in sst estimates of only 0 5 c the tests suggest that freeze dried samples rather than air dried sediments should preferably be used to determine the sedimentary concentration of biomarkers however if chlorins are the main target compounds wet extraction with acetone of sediment results in ca 12 higher yield than the extraction of freeze dried sediments with acetone water

last glacial interglacial productivity and associated changes in the eastern arabian sea abstract we reconstruct paleo productivity and bottom water oxygenation changes during the past 32 ka from the southeastern arabian sea using absolute abundance of planktic foraminifera relative abundance of globigerina bulloides angular asymmetrical benthic foraminifera aabf measurements of total organic carbon c org caco 3 and globigerinoides ruber 18 o and 13 c the faunal and geochemical proxies suggest that productivity in the southeastern arabian sea was high during mis 3 a distinct decrease in productivity is inferred during the last glacial maximum 19 23 ka lgm bottom water was well oxygenated during mis3 only to become oxygen depleted during the lgm productivity decreased abruptly during heinrich stadial 1 hs 1 but the response to heinrich stadial 2 hs 2 was different low productivity during the early deglaciation is also synchronous with an increase in ice volume corrected 18 o 18 o sw ivc a salinity proxy between 18 9 18 3 18 9 ka bp and 15 9 15 0 16 3 ka bp and a concomitant decrease in 13 c between 18 2 17 5 18 7 ka bp and 16 4 15 3 16 7 ka bp these patterns suggest that the global 13 c minimum event during the last deglaciation was associated with the weak monsoon interval during hs 1 and a drop in productivity in tropical regions a progressive increase in productivity is observed throughout the holocene with a distinct jump at 5 4 3 8 6 3 ka bp we infer that although productivity was higher in the eastern arabian sea during most of the last glacial interval the overall resultant carbon sequestration was confined only to a restricted zone and not large enough to substantially alter atmospheric co 2

minimal change in antarctic circumpolar current flow speed between the last glacial and holocene relatively little is known about the dynamics of the antarctic circumpolar current during the last glacial period estimates of current speeds over the past 20 000 years based on sediment grain size suggest that average flow speeds during the last glacial were comparable to modern speeds but not in the areas with overlying winter sea ice

eight glacial cycles from an antarctic ice core the antarctic vostok ice core provided compelling evidence of the nature of climate and of climate feedbacks over the past 420 000 years marine records suggest that the amplitude of climate variability was smaller before that time but such records are often poorly resolved moreover it is not possible to infer the abundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from marine records here we report the recovery of a deep ice core from dome c antarctica that provides a climate record for the past 740 000 years for the four most recent glacial cycles the data agree well with the record from vostok the earlier period between 740 000 and 430 000 years ago was characterized by less pronounced warmth in interglacial periods in antarctica but a higher proportion of each cycle was spent in the warm mode the transition from glacial to interglacial conditions about 430 000 years ago termination v resembles the transition into the present interglacial period in terms of the magnitude of change in temperatures and greenhouse gases but there are significant differences in the patterns of change the interglacial stage following termination v was exceptionally long 28 000 years compared to for example the 12 000 years recorded so far in the present interglacial period given the similarities between this earlier warm period and today our results may imply that without human intervention a climate similar to the present one would extend well into the future

the role of seasonality of mineral dust concentration and size on glacial interglacial dust changes in the epica dronning maud land ice core we present a record of particulate dust concentration and size distribution in subannual resolution measured on the european project for ice coring in antarctica epica dronning maud land edml ice core drilled in the atlantic sector of the east antarctic plateau the record reaches from present day back to the penultimate glacial until 145 000 years b p with subannual resolution from 60 000 years b p to the present mean dust concentrations are a factor of 46 higher during the glacial 850 4600 ng ml compared to the holocene 16 112 ng ml with slightly smaller dust particles during the glacial compared to the holocene and with an absolute minimum in the dust size at 16 000 years b p the changes in dust concentration are mainly attributed to changes in source conditions in southern south america an increase in the modal value of the dust size suggests that at 16 000 years b p a major change in atmospheric circulation apparently allowed more direct transport of dust particles to the edml drill site we find a clear in phase relation of the seasonal variation in dust mass concentration and dust size during the glacial r conc size 0 8 but no clear phase relationship during the holocene 0 r conc size 0 4 with a simple conceptual 1 d model describing the transport of the dust to the ice sheet using the size as an indicator for transport intensity we find that the effect of the changes in the seasonality of the source emission strength and the transport intensity on the dust decrease over transition 1 can significantly contribute to the large decrease of dust concentration from the glacial to the holocene

two stage mid brunhes climate transition and mid pleistocene human diversification abstract global climate shifted to markedly warmer interglacial conditions across the mid brunhes transition mbt 400 ka however a global mbt synthesis that spans marine and terrestrial evidence remains elusive which limits our understanding of the role of the mbt in mid pleistocene human evolution we synthesize asian precipitation reconstructions within a context of global palaeoclimatic records and find that the mbt occurred in two stages first stronger warming of northern hemisphere continents weaker southern hemisphere warming and related more extensive northward displacement of the intertropical convergence zone itcz during interglacial marine isotope stage mis 13 intensified and expanded precipitation in asian monsoon regions and in other widespread northern hemisphere regions with accompanying carbon reservoir changes featuring globally high marine benthic 13c values because of vegetation expansion at 500 ka subdued southern hemisphere warming and northward itcz displacement decreased southern hemisphere precipitation simultaneously during mis 13 second a shift to globally warmer interglacials at 400 ka with elevated atmospheric co2 concentrations smaller ice volume and higher sea level resulted in sustained high interglacial precipitation in east asia from mis 11 onward and sustained high marine benthic 13c values during mis 11 we also synthesize palaeoanthropological data and find that the climate and ecosystem changes across the mbt coincided with the timing of human lineage diversification including the emergence of neanderthals and denisovans in eurasia and homo sapiens in africa and their potential coexistence with h heidelbergensis h erectus h floresiensis h naledi and other homo archaics the timing of the mbt also coincided with novel hominin behavioural developments including fire control and the transition from handaxe industries to more versatile levallois techniques combined with environmental theories of human evolution this chronological coincidence suggests a potential link between mid pleistocene environmental changes and human evolution

glacial interglacial co2 change the iron hypothesis several explanations for the 200 to 280 ppm glacial interglacial change in atmospheric co2 concentrations deal with variations in southern ocean phytoplankton productivity and the related use or nonuse of major plant nutrients an hypothesis is presented herein in which arguments are made that new productivity in today s southern ocean 7 4 1013g yr 1 is limited by iron deficiency and hence the phytoplankton are unable to take advantage of the excess surface nitrate phosphate that if used could result in total southern ocean new production of 2 3 1015 g c yr 1 as a consequence of fe limited new productivity holocene interglacial co2 levels preindustrial are as high as they were during the last interglacial 280 ppm in contrast atmospheric dust fe supplies were 50 times higher during the last glacial maximum lgm because of this fe enrichment phytoplankton growth may have been greatly enhanced larger amounts of upwelled nutrients may have been used and the resulting stimulation of new productivity may have contributed to the lgm drawdown of atmospheric co2 to levels of less than 200 ppm background information and arguments in support of this hypothesis are presented

antarctic and global climate history viewed from ice cores a growing network of ice cores reveals the past 800 000 years of antarctic climate and atmospheric composition the data show tight links among greenhouse gases aerosols and global climate on many timescales demonstrate connections between antarctica and distant locations and reveal the extraordinary differences between the composition of our present atmosphere and its natural range of variability as revealed in the ice core record further coring in extremely challenging locations is now being planned with the goal of finding older ice and resolving the mechanisms underlying the shift of glacial cycles from 40 000 year to 100 000 year cycles about a million years ago one of the great mysteries of climate science a discussion of past antarctic and global climate history as seen from antarctic ice cores with an outlook on future goals and drilling priorities

230th normalization an essential tool for interpreting sedimentary fluxes during the late quaternary there is increasing evidence indicating that syndepositional redistribution of sediment on the seafloor by bottom currents is common and can significantly affect sediment mass accumulation rates notwithstanding its common incidence this process generally referred to as sediment focusing is often difficult to recognize if redistribution is near synchronous to deposition the stratigraphy of the sediment is not disturbed and sediment focusing can easily be overlooked ignoring it however can lead to serious misinterpretations of sedimentary fluxes particularly when past changes in export flux from the overlying water are inferred in many instances this problem can be resolved at least for sediments deposited during the late quaternary by normalizing to the flux of 230th scavenged from seawater which is nearly constant and equivalent to the known rate of production of 230th from the decay of dissolved 234u we review the principle advantages and limitations of this method notwithstanding its limitations it is clear that 230th normalization does provide a means of achieving more accurate interpretations of sedimentary fluxes and eliminates the risk of serious misinterpretations of sediment mass accumulation rates

sedimentary record of the mid pleistocene climate transition in the southeastern south atlantic odp site 1090 abstract one important goal of leg 177 of the ocean drilling program odp was to explore the nature of the mid pleistocene climate transition mpt on the southern hemisphere a suitable mpt record was encountered at site 1090 in the southeastern south atlantic where a 44 m thick sequence of quaternary diatom bearing foraminiferal muds and oozes was recovered on the agulhas ridge environmental responses to the mpt comprised changes in terrestrial climate biological productivity and regional ocean circulation as inferred from compositional sediment data and clay mineralogy a shift towards more arid conditions occurred between 900 and 800 ka in southern africa changes in palaeoceanography already started earlier since 1150 ka northward displacements of the polar front appeared during glacial periods and shifted the area of dominant diatom deposition towards site 1090 likewise glacial interglacial contrasts in regional conveyor circulation strengthened after 1200 ka and became most severe after 650 ka however while changes in regional conveyor circulation likely responded in tune with global ice volume changes and show the onset of 100 kyr cycles after 1200 ka an unusual 130 kyr pattern characterises the pattern of frontal movements between 1200 ka and 650 ka probably in response to imperfect adaptation of regional climate to the global 100 kyr climate cycles

storm related taphofacies and paleoenvironments of malvinokaffric assemblages from the lower middle devonian in southwestern gondwana abstract taphofacies of malvinokaffric macroinvertebrate bearing rocks from the uppermost pragian to lower givetian in southwestern gondwana are evaluated during the lower middle devonian the parana basin southern brazil was positioned at high latitudes in southwestern gondwana 60 to 80 s integrated litho and taphofacies interpretations in siliciclastic environments presented here provide paleoecological and paleoenvironmental insights the six taphofacies recognized here showed changing depositional conditions in paleoenvironments ranging from shoreface to offshore shelf settings they vary in recurrence and abundance but all facies exhibit evidence of storm events winter storms are to be expected at latitudes 60 to 80 s under cool climate zone storm related taphofacies recurrence during the latest pragian to early givetian points to two agents of sedimentation direct wave erosion by winter storms and sedimentary processes related to combined flow during deposition e g turbidity currents and oscillatory flow winter storms are considered more capable of affecting sediment transport than hurricanes due to longer duration and larger coverage area in higher latitudes therefore winter storms of high latitudes should generate more persistent currents in space and time finally the taphofacies lithofacies and high latitude paleogeographic context of the parana basin suggest the action of storm influence in the genesis of all lower middle devonian malvinokaffric assemblages here recognized

the fezouata shale lower ordovician anti atlas morocco a historical review abstract exceptionally preserved fossils yield crucial information about the evolution of life on earth the fezouata biota from the lower ordovician of morocco is a konservat lagerstatte of major importance and it is today considered as an ordovician burgess shale this biota was discovered only some 15 years ago but geological studies of the area date back to the beginning of the 20th century pioneering geological investigations lead to the discovery of ordovician strata in the anti atlas 1929 and ultimately resulted in their formal subdivision into four main stratigraphic units 1942 in the agdz area the presence of fossiliferous tremadocian lower ordovician strata was suspected as early as 1939 but only definitively confirmed in 1955 in the 1960s 1990s jacques destombes provided the first detailed biostratigraphic framework for the lower ordovician of the anti atlas and collected thousands of fossils that were subsequently described in a series of monographs in the early 2000s exceptionally preserved fossils were discovered in the fezouata shale tremadocian late floian in the central anti atlas by mohamed ou said ben moula this biota now known as the fezouata biota is of utmost importance for it demonstrates the extent in the fossil record of non biomineralising animals typical of the cambrian explosion into the ordovician during the great ordovician biodiversification although most components are still in need of formal descriptions a fairly good picture of the composition and organisation of this biota and how it contributes to our understanding of the early evolution of metazoan communities can now be depicted moreover recent studies have substantially clarified the biostratigraphical and palaeoenvironmental context of the fezouata shale and are now being followed up by detailed investigations of the taphonomy geochemistry and micropalaeontology of this unique konservat lagerstatte these efforts will soon greatly benefit from the recovery of fresh unweathered samples from drill cores

precision of the current methods to measure the alkenone proxy u 37 k and absolute alkenone abundance in sediments results of an interlaboratory comparison study measurements of the u 37 k index and the absolute abundance of alkenones in marine sediments are increasingly used in paleoceanographic research as proxies of past sea surface temperature and haptophyte mainly coccolith bearing species primary productivity respectively an important aspect of these studies is to be able to compare reliably data obtained by different laboratories from a wide variety of locations hence the intercomparability of data produced by the research community is essential here we report results from an anonymous interlaboratory comparison study involving 24 of the leading laboratories that carry out alkenone measurements worldwide the majority of laboratories produce data that are intercomparable within the considered confidence limits for the measurement of alkenone concentrations however there are systematic biases between laboratories which might be related to the techniques employed to quantify the components the maximum difference between any two laboratories for any two single measurements of u 37 k in sediments is estimated with a probability of 95 to be c in addition the overall within laboratory precision for the u 37 k temperature estimates is estimated to be c 95 probability similarly from the analyses of alkenone concentrations the interlaboratory reproducibility is estimated at 32 and the repeatability is estimated at 24 the former is compared to a theoretical estimate of reproducibility and found to be excessively high hence there is certainly scope and a demonstrable need to improve reproducibility and repeatability of u 37 k and especially alkenone quantification data across the community of scientists involved in alkenone research

sea ice control of plio pleistocene tropical pacific climate evolution marine proxies of sea surface temperature sst indicate that the tropical pacific thermal gradient intensified through the plio pleistocene and peaked during pleistocene glaciations the cause of this variability which has been linked to the initiation of the walker circulation is uncertain here we hypothesize that plio pleistocene tropical climate variability was coupled to high latitude southern hemisphere climate change specifically sea ice extent we use a coupled ocean atmosphere general circulation model to investigate the influences of sea ice extent and atmospheric co2 on the tropical pacific thermal structure in the model co2 radiative forcing in the absence of any sea ice feedbacks has little influence on the tropical sst gradient a 180 ppm reduction in co2 causes the sst gradient to decrease by 0 4 c in comparison an expansion of southern hemisphere high latitude sea ice reduces tropical ssts and enhances the sst gradient in the tropical pacific by as much as 3 5 c tropical cooling is primarily due to the advection and upwelling of waters into the eastern equatorial pacific that were cooled by sensible heat loss at the sea ice margin in the southern pacific an energy balance analysis indicates that the ocean heat flux into the eastern equatorial pacific decreases by 44 this mechanism provides an intimate coupling between the tropical pacific and the high latitude southern hemisphere through the thermocline circulation

seasonality of u k 37 temperature estimates as inferred from sediment trap data abstract the seasonality of sea surface temperatures sst estimated from the alkenone u k 37 index has been a debated issue since the development of the proxy using a compilation of sediment trap time series data from 34 sampling locations we show that the seasonality of maximum alkenone flux in sediment traps varies markedly across the oceans depending not only on latitude and light availability but also on local oceanographic conditions the seasonality of the alkenone flux to sediments may also be shaped by the complexity of sedimentation processes and a consistent globally applicable seasonal pattern is not apparent nevertheless u k 37 values display a world ocean scale correlation with mean annual ssts 0 m that closely resembles the standard calibration equation now established for modern surface sediment records thus with a few notable exceptions at oceanographic locations proximate to major hydrographic fronts it can be concluded that the integrated sedimentation patterns for u k 37 measured in sediment trap time series provide a measure of annual mean sst

stable carbon cycle climate relationship during the late pleistocene a record of atmospheric carbon dioxide co2 concentrations measured on the epica european project for ice coring in antarctica dome concordia ice core extends the vostok co2 record back to 650 000 years before the present yr b p before 430 000 yr b p partial pressure of atmospheric co2 lies within the range of 260 and 180 parts per million by volume this range is almost 30 smaller than that of the last four glacial cycles however the apparent sensitivity between deuterium and co2 remains stable throughout the six glacial cycles suggesting that the relationship between co2 and antarctic climate remained rather constant over this interval

the deglacial transition on the southeastern alaska margin meltwater input sea level rise marine productivity and sedimentary anoxia 1 oxygen isotope data from planktonic and benthic foraminifera on a high resolution age model 44 14c dates spanning 17 400 years document deglacial environmental change on the southeast alaska margin 59 33 32 n 144 9 21 w 682 m water depth surface freshening i e 18o reduction of 0 8 began at 16 650 170 cal years b p during an interval of ice proximal sedimentation likely due to freshwater input from melting glaciers a sharp transition to laminated hemipelagic sediments constrains retreat of regional outlet glaciers onto land circa 14 790 380 cal years b p abrupt warming and or freshening of the surface ocean i e additional 18o reduction of 0 9 coincides with the bolling interstade of northern europe and greenland cooling and or higher salinities returned during the allerod interval coincident with the antarctic cold reversal and continue until 11 740 200 cal years b p when onset of warming coincides with the end of the younger dryas an abrupt 1 reduction in benthic 18o at 14 250 290 cal years b p likely reflects a decrease in bottom water salinity driven by deep mixing of glacial meltwater a regional megaflood event or brine formation associated with sea ice two laminated opal rich intervals record discrete episodes of high productivity during the last deglaciation these events precisely dated here at 14 790 380 to 12 990 190 cal years b p and 11 160 130 to 10 750 220 cal years b p likely correlate to similar features observed elsewhere on the margins of the north pacific and are coeval with episodes of rapid sea level rise remobilization of iron from newly inundated continental shelves may have helped to fuel these episodes of elevated primary productivity and sedimentary anoxia

comparing proxies for the reconstruction of lgm sea surface conditions in the northern north atlantic abstract within the frame of the multiproxy approach for the reconstruction of the glacial ocean margo project sea surface conditions of the last glacial maximum lgm 23 19 ka were reconstructed using different proxies which were calibrated to a standardized modern hydrography in the north atlantic the revised lgm margo data set provides a comprehensive coverage including the nordic seas the data set includes reconstruction based on planktonic foraminifer assemblages dinocyst assemblages alkenone coccolithophorid biomarkers and mg ca ratios in planktonic foraminifers several hydrological features of the lgm north atlantic can be identified that are supported by all four proxies they include an extensive perennial sea ice cover along the eastern canadian and greenland margins seasonally ice free central north atlantic and norwegian sea and the winter sea ice limit being located at about 55 n all proxies also suggest significantly colder than modern sea surface conditions in the southeastern part of the north atlantic and a more zonal temperature pattern than at present with a steep sst gradient of the order of 10 c between 40 n and 45 n however in the nordic seas large discrepancies remain well above the level of uncertainty of the sst reconstructions these discrepancies might be related to stratification of the upper water mass linked to large annual amplitude of temperature with contrasting winter and summer conditions high interannual interdecadal variability or taphonomic processes affecting some of the proxies the average lgm sst in the nordic seas cannot at present be assessed with confidence however the existing evidence suggests that highly variable sea surface conditions and at least occasional advection of north atlantic waters may have characterised the glacial nordic seas

pliocene environmental change in west africa and the onset of strong ne trade winds odp sites 659 and 658 abstract pliocene vegetation dynamics and climate variability in west africa have been investigated through pollen and xrf scanning records obtained from sediment cores of odp site 659 18 n 21 w the comparison between total pollen accumulation rates and ti ca ratios which is strongly correlated with the dust input at the site showed elevated aeolian transport of pollen during dusty periods comparison of the pollen records of odp site 659 and the nearby site 658 resulted in a robust reconstruction of west african vegetation change since the late pliocene between 3 6 and 3 0 ma the savannah in west africa differed in composition from its modern counterpart and was richer in asteraceae in particular of the tribus cichorieae between 3 24 and 3 20 ma a stable wet period is inferred from the fe k ratios which could stand for a narrower and better specified mid pliocene mid piacenzian warm time slice the northward extension of woodland and savannah albeit fluctuating was generally greater in the pliocene ne trade wind vigour increased intermittently around 2 7 and 2 6 ma and more or less permanently since 2 5 ma as inferred from increased pollen concentrations of trade wind indicators ephedra artemisia pinus our findings link the ne trade wind development with the intensification of the northern hemisphere glaciations inhg prior to the inhg little or no systematic relation could be found between sea surface temperatures of the north atlantic with aridity and dust in west africa

glacial interglacial changes in nutrient supply and stratification in the western subarctic north pacific since the penultimate glacial maximum abstract in piston cores from the open subarctic pacific and the okhotsk sea diatom bound 15n 15ndb biogenic opal calcium carbonate and barium were measured from coretop to the previous glacial maximum mis 6 glacial intervals are generally characterized by high 15ndb 8 and low productivity whereas interglacial intervals have a lower 15ndb 5 7 6 3 and indicate high biogenic productivity these data extend the regional swath of evidence for nearly complete surface nutrient utilization during glacial maxima consistent with stronger upper water column stratification throughout the subarctic region during colder intervals an early deglacial decline in 15ndb of 2 at 17 5 ka previously observed in the bering sea is found here in the open subarctic pacific record and arguably also in the okhotsk and a case can be made that a similar decrease in 15ndb occurred in both regions at the previous deglaciation as well the early deglacial 15ndb decrease best explained by a decrease in surface nutrient utilization appears synchronous with southern hemisphere associated deglacial changes and with the heinrich 1 event in the north atlantic this 15ndb decrease may signal the initial deglacial weakening in subarctic north pacific stratification and or a deglacial increase in shallow subsurface nitrate concentration if the former it would be the north pacific analogue to the increase in vertical exchange inferred for the southern ocean at the time of heinrich event 1 in either case the lack of any clear change in paleoproductivity proxies during this interval would seem to require an early deglacial decrease in the iron to nitrate ratio of subsurface nutrient supply or the predominance of light limitation of phytoplankton growth during the deglaciation prior to bolling allerod warming

coccolithophore variability across marine isotope stage 11 in the pacific sector of the southern ocean and its potential impact on the carbon cycle proxy based reconstructions of past changes in the marine biological carbon pumps are limited especially in the southern ocean this work provides new insights into the productivity variations in the pacific sector of the southern ocean we present new data derived from three sediment cores that show glacial interglacial coccolithophore variability across marine isotope stage 11 mis 11 the cores were retrieved during r v polarstern cruise ps75 from the subantarctic zone and polar front zone at the western flank of the east pacific rise and in the vicinity of the antarctic pacific ridge coccolithophore assemblages were overwhelmingly dominated by the species gephyrocapsa caribbeanica and small gephyrocapsa total numbers of coccoliths coccolith accumulation rates coccolith fraction cf 20 m fraction sr ca data and temperature corrected cf sr ca records consistently showed an increase in coccolithophore productivity during termination v mis 12 11 boundary highest productivity throughout mis 11 424 374 kyr and a decrease during late mis 11 in all the cores we end with a discussion of back calculated coccolith calcification rate in the surface ocean and its potential contribution to changes in the concentration of atmospheric co2

feedback between aeolian dust climate and atmospheric co2 in glacial time 1 enhanced aeolian supply of iron to the biota of the southern ocean during glacial periods is suspected to be an important contributory mechanism to the concurrently low observed mixing ratios of atmospheric co2 declining rates of dust deposition prior to the glacial terminations may be critical in driving the initial deglacial rise in co2 but the reasons behind the dust decline itself are as yet unknown here we show that the dust record from the vostok ice core can be qualitatively derived from a few general assumptions regarding the formation and aging of patagonian sources of aeolian material and the efficiency with which it is transported through the atmosphere we suggest that during glacial periods this dust supply becomes particularly sensitive to changes in global climate and that in turn climate is responsive to the dust due to iron fertilization this positive feedback may mean that during glacial periods the carbon cycle exhibits two quasi steady states characterized by distinct co2 concentrations recognition of this glacial subcycle may help to account for the timing and sequence of events at the terminations

quantifying the opal belt in the atlantic and southeast pacific sector of the southern ocean by means of 230th normalization 1 a set of 114 samples from the sediment surface of the atlantic eastern pacific and western indian sectors of the southern ocean has been analyzed for 230th and biogenic silica maps of opal content th normalized mass flux and th normalized biogenic opal flux into the sediment have been derived significant differences in sedimentation patterns between the regions can be detected the mean bulk vertical fluxes integrated into the sediment in the open southern ocean are found in a narrow range from 2 9 g m 2 yr 1 eastern weddell gyre to 15 8 g m 2 yr 1 indian sector setting upper and lower limits to the vertically received fraction of open ocean sediments the silica flux to sediments of the atlantic sector of the southern ocean is found to be 4 2 1 4 1011 mol yr 1 just one half of the last estimate this adjustment represents 6 of the output term in the global marine silica budget

the role of southern ocean processes in orbital and millennial co2 variations a synthesis abstract recent progress in the reconstruction of atmospheric co 2 records from antarctic ice cores has allowed for the documentation of natural co 2 variations on orbital time scales over the last up to 800 000 years and for the resolution of millennial co 2 variations during the last glacial cycle in unprecedented detail this has shown that atmospheric co 2 varied within natural bounds of approximately 170 300 ppmv but never reached recent co 2 concentrations caused by anthropogenic co 2 emissions in addition the natural atmospheric co 2 concentrations show an extraordinary correlation with southern ocean climate changes pointing to a significant direct or indirect influence of climatic and environmental changes in the southern ocean region on atmospheric co 2 concentrations here we compile recent ice core and marine sediment records of atmospheric co 2 temperature and environmental changes in the southern ocean region as well as carbon cycle model experiments in order to quantify the effect of potential southern ocean processes on atmospheric co 2 related to these orbital and millennial changes this shows that physical and biological changes in the so are able to explain substantial parts of the glacial interglacial co 2 change but that none of the single processes is able to explain this change by itself in particular changes in the southern ocean related to changes in the surface buoyancy flux which in return is controlled by the waxing and waning of sea ice may favorably explain the high correlation of co 2 and antarctic temperature on orbital and millennial time scales in contrast the changes of the position and strength of the westerly wind field were most likely too small to explain the observed changes in atmospheric co 2 or may even have increased atmospheric co 2 in the glacial also iron fertilization of the marine biota in the southern ocean contributes to a glacial drawdown of co 2 but turns out to be limited by other factors than the total dust input such as bioavailability of iron or macronutrient supply

hydrological impact of heinrich events in the subtropical northeast atlantic reconstructing the impact of heinrich events outside the main belt of ice rafting is crucial to understanding the underlying causes of these abrupt climatic events a high resolution study of a marine sediment core from the iberian margin demonstrates that this midlatitude area was strongly affected both by cooling and advection of low salinity arctic water masses during the last three heinrich events these paleoclimatic time series reveal the internal complexity of each of the last three heinrich events and illustrate the value of parallel studies of the organic and inorganic fractions of the sediments

a 0 55 ma paleotemperature record from the subantarctic zone implications for antarctic circumpolar current development 1 estimates of summer sea surface temperatures sssts derived from planktic foraminiferal associations using the modern analog technique and combined with isotopic analyses and determination of ice rafted debris mirror the pleistocene evolution of the planktic subantarctic surface waters in the atlantic ocean the sssts indicate that the isotherms that define the modern polar front zone and subantarctic front were located at more northerly latitudes up to 7 during most of the investigated period which covers the past 550 kyr exceptions are during climatic optima in the early holocene at marine isotope stages mis 5 5 7 1 7 5 9 3 and presumably during mis 11 3 when sssts exceeded modern values by 1 5 c the close similarity between the ssst and the vostok temperature indicates strong regional temperature correlation both records show that mis 9 3 was the warmest period during the last 420 kyr whereas sssts obtained for mis 11 3 are overestimated due to strong carbonate dissolution spectral analysis corroborates that the initiation of warming in southern high latitudes heralds the start of deglaciation on the northern hemisphere

detecting the source of heinrich layers an organic geochemical study 1 there are controversies regarding the origin of heinrich layer 3 h3 the massive ice rafting and meltwater event in the north atlantic during the last glacial cycle spanning a time window between 29 and 30 kyr b p some argue in favor of a laurentide ice sheet source similar to other heinrich layers while a contending view argues for the european ice sheet source existing geochemical proxies such as 40ar 39ar 206pb 204pb or nd etc could not be used to distinguish among various sources of ice rafted debris in h3 because of their low abundances suggesting a background glacial sediment signal in order to circumvent this problem a biomarker based approach is used to characterize the provenance of h layers 2 3 and 4 and other non heinrich layers the presence of hopanes and steranes and their aromatic counterparts in the h layers is incompatible with recent sediments and is attributed to the transportation of organic matter because of the glacial erosion of source rocks the most diagnostic and useful signatures of this ancient organic matter in the h layers are the dominance of c34 hopanoids over c33 and the occurrence of isorenieratane along with palaerenieratane biomarkers signatures in h layers 2 and 3 of the labrador sea suggest no difference in their source hydrocarbon distributions suggest that these sediments were derived from the middle to late ordovician and silurian source rocks of the hudson bay of eastern canada biomarker data of the h layer 4 from the northwest atlantic reveal that the sediments of this layer have a similar source to the h layers in the labrador sea

last abundant appearance datum of hemidiscus karstenii driven by climate change abstract the last abundant appearance datum of the endemic southern ocean diatom hemisdiscus karstenii jouse is dated at around 190 000 years before present which provides a robust and convenient biostratigraphic marker to late pleistocene paleoceanographic studies however no prior studies have sought to understand what processes may have driven h karstenii to extinction we here present the first morphometric investigation of h karstenii over marine isotope stage mis 10 to 6 355 000 years to 150 000 years the combination of these data to records of h karstenii absolute abundances fragilariopsis kerguelensis biometry and absolute abundances and southern high latitude air and ocean temperatures over the past 355 000 years suggests that h karstenii populations reduced their mean size and productivity in response to the rapid drop in temperatures across the mis 7 to mis 6 glacial inception this prolonged cooling event may have pushed h karstenii to its adaptive limit until it could not sustain physiological viability the repetitive occurrence of very cold events during the early mis 6 may have additionally prevented surviving populations of h karstenii from re establishing abundant communities leading to extinction late in mis 6

interglacials of the last 800 000 years interglacials including the present holocene period are warm low land ice extent high sea level end members of glacial cycles based on a sea level definition we identify eleven interglacials in the last 800 000 years a result that is robust to alternative definitions data compilations suggest that despite spatial heterogeneity marine isotope stages mis 5e last interglacial and 11c 400 ka ago were globally strong warm while mis 13a 500 ka ago was cool at many locations a step change in strength of interglacials at 450 ka is apparent only in atmospheric co2 and in antarctic and deep ocean temperature the onset of an interglacial glacial termination seems to require a reducing precession parameter increasing northern hemisphere summer insolation but this condition alone is insufficient terminations involve rapid nonlinear reactions of ice volume co2 and temperature to external astronomical forcing the precise timing of events may be modulated by millennial scale climate change that can lead to a contrasting timing of maximum interglacial intensity in each hemisphere a variety of temporal trends is observed such that maxima in the main records are observed either early or late in different interglacials the end of an interglacial glacial inception is a slower process involving a global sequence of changes interglacials have been typically 10 30 ka long the combination of minimal reduction in northern summer insolation over the next few orbital cycles owing to low eccentricity and high atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations implies that the next glacial inception is many tens of millennia in the future

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

comparative behavior of authigenic re u and mo during reoxidation and subsequent long term burial in marine sediments the trace element re is enriched in mildly reducing suboxic sediments close to or slightly later in the redox sequence than u and before reduction of mo in more reducing sulfidic sediments this work investigates the behavior of authigenic re during oxidation and long term burial in the sediments of several turbidites from the madeira abyssal plain exposure to bottom water o2 clearly remobilizes authigenic re as found in previous work but reimmobilization occurs in reducing sediments below the oxidation front over a depth range of 0 5 3 m the large spread of the re burndown peak must be kinetically controlled perhaps influenced by the corg content once reimmobilized however the authigenic re signal remains immobile for at least 3 4 myr authigenic u in contrast consistently forms peaks 0 5 m broad whereas authigenic mo is lost on oxidation and does not appear to be refixed unless authigenic pyrite is formed these results imply that any paleoenvironmental significance of authigenic re will be compromised in low sedimentation rate environments 10 cm kyr where there is significant exposure of authigenic re to bottom water o2 however authigenic re records from rapidly accumulating continental margin sediments with much less exposure to bottom water o2 still offer considerable potential as high fidelity recorders of past reducing conditions

the last glacial maximum and deglaciation in southern south america abstract this paper models the extent of the patagonian icesheet during the last glacial maximum lgm and its subsequent deglaciation it constrains a new coupled icesheet climate numerical model with empirical evidence and simulates the icesheet at the lgm and at stages of deglaciation under lgm conditions an icesheet with a modelled volume slightly in excess of 500 000 km3 builds up along the andes there is a marked contrast between the maritime and continental flanks of the modelled icesheet with positive mass balance exceeding 2 m in the west and declining tenfold to the east modelled ice velocities commonly reach 400 m yr 1 in the western fjords the model is most sensitive to variations in temperature and good agreement between modelled ice extent and empirical evidence was achieved by applying a temperature decrease of 6 c relative to present day temperatures with constant wind fields over the model domain assuming a stepped start to deglaciation modelled ice volumes declined sharply contributing 1 2 m to global sea level 80 of it within 2000 years the empirical record suggests that such a stepped warming occurred around 17 500 17 150 cal yr ago

grain size effects on th 230 xs inventories in opal rich and carbonate rich marine sediments abstract excess thorium 230 230thxs as a constant flux tracer is an essential tool for paleoceanographic studies but its limitations for flux normalization are still a matter of debate in regions of rapid sediment accumulation it has been an open question if 230thxs normalized fluxes are biased by particle sorting effects during sediment redistribution in order to study the sorting effect of sediment transport on 230thxs we analyzed the specific activity of 230thxs in different particle size classes of carbonate rich sediments from the south east atlantic and of opal rich sediments from the atlantic sector of the southern ocean at both sites we compare the 230thxs distribution in neighboring high vs low accumulation settings two grain size fractionation methods are explored we find that the 230thxs distribution is strongly grain size dependent and 50 90 of the total 230thxs inventory is concentrated in fine material smaller than 10 m which is preferentially deposited at the high accumulation sites this leads to an overestimation of the focusing factor and consequently to an underestimation of the vertical flux rate at such sites the distribution of authigenic uranium indicates that fine organic rich material has also been re deposited from lateral sources if the particle sorting effect is considered in the flux calculations it reduces the estimated extent of sediment focusing in order to assess the maximum effect of particle sorting on we present an extreme scenario in which we assume a lateral sediment supply of only fine material comparing 230thxs normalized mass fluxes biased by sorting effects with uncorrected mass fluxes we suggest that 230thxs normalization is still a valid tool to correct for lateral sediment redistribution however differences in focusing factors between core locations have to be evaluated carefully taking the grain size distributions into consideration

evolution of the stable carbon isotope composition of atmospheric co2 over the last glacial cycle we present new c measurements of atmospheric co covering the last glacial interglacial cycle complementing previous records covering terminations i and ii most prominent in the new record is a significant depletion in c atm of 0 5 occurring during marine isotope stage mis 4 followed by an enrichment of the same magnitude at the beginning of mis 3 such a significant excursion in the record is otherwise only observed at glacial terminations suggesting that similar processes were at play such as changing sea surface temperatures changes in marine biological export in the southern ocean so due to variations in aeolian iron fluxes changes in the atlantic meridional overturning circulation upwelling of deep water in the so and long term trends in terrestrial carbon storage based on previous modeling studies we propose constraints on some of these processes during specific time intervals the decrease in c atm at the end of mis 4 starting approximately 64 kyr b p was accompanied by increasing co this period is also marked by a decrease in aeolian iron flux to the so followed by an increase in so upwelling during heinrich event 6 indicating that it is likely that a large amount of c depleted carbon was transferred to the deep oceans previously i e at the onset of mis 4 apart from the upwelling event at the end of mis 4 and potentially smaller events during heinrich events in mis 3 upwelling of deep water in the so remained reduced until the last glacial termination whereupon a second pulse of isotopically light carbon was released into the atmosphere

clay mineralogical and geochemical expressions of the late campanian event in the aquitaine and paris basins france palaeoenvironmental implications campanian sediments from two french sedimentary basins were studied using clay mineralogy and stable isotope 13c and 18o geochemistry in order to investigate the late campanian event the clay fraction of the campanian sediments from the tercis les bains section aquitaine basin and from the poigny borehole paris basin is mainly composed of smectite this background sedimentation was however interrupted during the upper campanian in the two basins by a substantial increase in detrital inputs including illite kaolinite and chlorite at tercis les bains and illite at poigny this detrital event resulting from the enhanced erosion of nearby continental areas triggered by increasing runoff has also been recognized in the tethys and south atlantic oceans it coincided with a global negative carbon isotope excursion the late campanian event lce carbon isotope stratigraphy was used to correlate the two basins with previously studied sections from distant areas spectral analysis of the bulk 13c from tercis les bains suggests a duration of ca 400 kyr for a pre lce negative excursion and ca 800 900 kyr for the lce sensu stricto the detrital event as characterized by clay mineralogy spans the interval that comprises the pre lce and the lce with a duration of 1 3 myr intensification of continental erosion during the lce may have resulted either from the late campanian polyplocum regression and or from a regional tectonic pulse that triggered the emersion of previous submerged shelf areas and the increase of silicate erosion as the lce seems to be recorded at a large geographic scale it is proposed here that enhanced chemical weathering and an associated decrease in atmospheric pco2 levels could have contributed to the long term late cretaceous cooling trend

response of south atlantic deep waters to deglacial warming during terminations v and i abstract new deep sea core data from the atlantic sector of the southern ocean covering mis12 to mis10 and the last deglaciation show a clear lag of the changes in deep water properties with respect to changes in surface conditions the development of a chronology based on the correlation of southern ocean sea surface temperature with air temperature over antarctica allows the quantification and comparison of phase lags within the marine records during termination v tv and termination i ti deglacial changes in the south atlantic are interpreted as the response to changes in the state of the atlantic meridional ocean circulation amoc the warming of south atlantic surface waters and air temperature over antarctica at the beginning of both tv and ti is attributable to a reduction in interhemispheric heat transport due to the weakening of the amoc comparison of our results with climber 2 simulations indicates that the response of bottom waters seen in the benthic isotopic records delayed with respect to south atlantic surface warming can be explained by the increased inflow of north atlantic deep water nadw to the south atlantic site at the time of the amoc recovery reconstructed sea surface temperature at our south atlantic site exhibits a cold spell at the end of tv resembling the antarctic cold reversal of the last deglaciation the presence of cold spells during tv and ti may be explained by the fact that the recovery of the amoc took place early during the termination in both cases the sequence of events is similar during both terminations however the magnitude of the phase shifts between south atlantic surface and deep waters conditions differs from one termination to the other suggesting variations in the magnitude and duration of the amoc perturbation

new evidence for changes in plio pleistocene deep water circulation from southern ocean odp leg 177 site 1090 abstract changes in atlantic deep water circulation were reconstructed by comparing the benthic foraminiferal 13c record at odp site 1090 in the south atlantic with similar records from the north atlantic sites 982 607 925 929 and deep pacific site 849 oceans important deep water circulation changes occurred in the early pleistocene at 1 55 myr and during the mid pleistocene transition at 0 9 myr at 1 55 myr glacial 13c values in the southern ocean became significantly lower than those in the deep pacific establishing a pattern that persisted throughout the late pleistocene we propose that the lowering of 13c values of southern component water scw at this time resulted from expansion of sea ice and reduced ventilation of deep water during glacial periods after marine isotope stage 52 accompanying this change in southern ocean deep water circulation was enhanced interhemispheric coupling between the north and south atlantic after 1 55 myr at 0 9 myr the magnitude of glacial to interglacial variability in 13c increased and shifted to a longer frequency 100 kyr along with oceanic 18o ice volume calculation of percent northern component water ncw using site 1090 as the scw end member yielded 20 30 less reduction of ncw during glacial periods of the late pleistocene also a trend toward reduced glacial suppression of ncw during the past 400 kyr is not evident the apparent decoupling of ice volume and deep water circulation reported previously may be an artifact of using a pacific rather than a southern ocean carbon isotopic record to calculate past mixing ratios of ncw and scw

distributions of uk37 and uk37 in the surface waters and sediments of the nordic seas implications for paleoceanography in this paper we revise the application of the u and u indices as sea surface temperature sst proxies in the nordic seas in the summer of 1999 and 2000 we obtained samples of filtered particulate organic matter pom from surface waters 6 m depth of the nordic seas a number of samples were collected from polar waters with up to 80 of sea ice cover alkenones were detected in all of the major water masses of the nordic seas across a spectrum of sst values from 0 5 to 13 c and sss values from 29 6 to 35 6 psu concentrations of alkenones were similar in magnitude to those reported previously for the north atlantic and the southern ocean values of u from the new nordic seas pom data show no correlation with sst below 8 c in contrast below this temperature a linear correlation exists between u and regional sst supporting previous suggestions that overall u may be a more appropriate sst index for the region it must be noted however that u is calculated using the tetraunsaturated alkenone and the dominant control on this compound is not yet fully understood the new data highlight major differences between distributions of u and u in the water column pom and surficial sediments of the nordic seas we also examine the geographical dependence of the u versus sst relationship in the region s surficial sediments some areas are associated with unreliable sst estimates whereas in others the u versus sst relationship falls within the range of a global core top calibration it is suggested that the breakdown of the u sst relationship in some regions is due to ecological and sedimentological factors the latter relates to the extension of the habitats of alkenone producers in polar waters the former to the resuspension of sediments and laterally transported alkenone inputs this suggests that accurate alkenone derived sst estimates in the nordic seas are geographically constrained

glacial interglacial dust and export production records from the southern indian ocean abstract we present 230th normalized dust and export production fluxes for two contrasted marine sediment cores spanning the antarctic polar front close to the kerguelen plateau in the southern indian ocean covering the last glacial cycle we report glacial lithogenic fluxes comparable to the south atlantic and higher than in the south pacific sectors of the southern ocean structural and temporal discrepancies with dust reconstructions from antarctic ice cores and the atlantic and pacific sectors of the subantarctic zone saz point towards southern africa and or the kerguelen plateau as an additional source of lithogenic material to the southern indian ocean during the last ice age in the saz export production proxies respond to iron fe fertilization with total organic carbon toc fluxes as high as those previously reported from the atlantic sector of the southern ocean however the correlation between export production and dust proxies is weaker than in the other sectors and shows a muted response of export production during peak glacials we hypothesize that this muted response may be related to macronutrient co limitation imposed on phytoplankton growth possibly induced by a northward displacement of wind driven upwelling and or the polar frontal system during peak glacials the antarctic zone az record depicts the typical pattern of enhanced export production during interglacials and comparatively low productivity during glacials suggesting a decrease in the supply of macronutrients to the az surface during ice ages compared to warm periods as previously proposed however a muted response of opal fluxes during marine isotope stage mis 5e argues for a southward migration of the frontal system during warmer mis 5e possibly causing silicic acid co limitation at this site these results illustrate the important role of fe fertilization and changes in wind driven upwelling intensities in modulating the strength and efficiency of the biological carbon pump in the southern ocean but also highlight the potential role of frontal movements in explaining export production variability at sites located close to the antarctic circumpolar current acc fronts overall our new datasets provide new insights on the regional differences in dust and export production patterns that need to be considered in order to evaluate the efficiency of carbon sequestration in the different sectors of the southern ocean during ice ages

deglacial weakening of the oceanic soft tissue pump global constraints from sedimentary nitrogen isotopes and oxygenation proxies abstract among the many potential explanations for the 80 ppm rise of atmospheric co2 concentrations at the end of the last ice age most involve a weakening of the oceanic soft tissue pump here we use global data compilations of sedimentary nitrogen isotopes and benthic oxygenation proxies to provide a synoptic global perspective on the deglacial soft tissue pump weakening the net change between the last glacial maximum and holocene shows a removal of respired carbon everywhere that proxy data is available with the exception of the upper 1 5 km of the north pacific while excess nitrate accumulated in polar oceans these observations could be explained by intensifying iron limitation a shoaling of organic matter remineralization and or a change in ocean circulation but are inconsistent with a change in the magnitude or position of the southern mid latitude westerlies the net soft tissue pump weakening was front loaded in the early deglaciation 17 5 14 ka when atmospheric 13c and 14c were changing rapidly and appears to have contributed little net change thereafter superimposed on the overall deglacial trend were pronounced transient changes that coincided with variability in the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc and bipolar seesaw the seesaw variability is most clearly expressed as anti phased oxygenation changes between the upper 1 5 km of the north pacific and the deep north atlantic consistent with an atlantic pacific ventilation seesaw but it dominated transient variability in records throughout the world although the soft tissue pump seesaw made little contribution to the contrast between the glacial and interglacial states it could have contributed to deglacial variability in atmospheric co2 and might have catalyzed the deglaciation

contribution of seasonal sub antarctic surface water variability to millennial scale changes in atmospheric co2 over the last deglaciation and marine isotope stage 3 the southern ocean is thought to have played a key role in past atmospheric carbon dioxide co2 atm changes three main factors are understood to control the southern ocean s influence on co2 atm via their impact on surface ocean pco2 and therefore regional ocean atmosphere co2 fluxes 1 the efficiency of air sea gas exchange which may be attenuated by seasonal or annual sea ice coverage or the development of a shallow pycnocline 2 the supply of co2 rich water masses from the sub surface and the deep ocean which is associated with turbulent mixing and surface buoyancy and or wind forcing and 3 biological carbon fixation which depends on nutrient availability and is therefore influenced by dust deposition and or upwelling in order to investigate the possible contributions of these processes to millennial scale co2 atm variations during the last glacial and deglacial periods we make use of planktonic foraminifer census counts and stable oxygen and carbon isotope measurements in the planktonic foraminifera globigerina bulloides and neogloboquadrina pachyderma sinistral from marine sediment core md07 3076q in the sub antarctic atlantic these data are interpreted on the basis of a comparison of core top and modern seawater isotope data which permits an assessment of the seasonal biases and geochemical controls on the stable isotopic compositions of g bulloides and n pachyderma s based on a comparison of our down core results with similar data from the southeast atlantic cape basin we infer past basin wide changes in the surface hydrography of the sub antarctic atlantic we find that millennial scale rises in co2 atm over the last 70 ka are consistently linked with evidence for increased spring upwelling and enhanced summer air sea exchange in the sub antarctic atlantic parallel evidence for increased summer export production would suggest that seasonal changes in upwelling and air sea exchange exerted a dominant influence on surface pco2 in the sub antarctic atlantic these results underline the role of southern ocean dynamics in particular their seasonal variations in driving millennial scale variations in co2 atm

glacial sea surface temperatures in the subtropical north pacific a comparison of u37 k δ18o and foraminiferal assemblage temperature estimates we have investigated glacial interglacial differences in sea surface temperature sst near hawaii using two relatively high deposition rate shallow water piston cores collected near oahu hawaii modern hydrographic data show that local surface water temperatures are broadly consistent with the regional pattern of ssts in the southern subtropical north pacific past ssts were estimated on the basis of three independently measured parameters 1 u37k values of alkenones 2 18o of globigerinoides ruber and 3 assemblages of planktonic foraminifera using the modern analog technique mat the two cores yield similar sst records and if differences in the ecology of foraminifera and coccolithophores are considered the three different approaches to estimating ssts yield consistent results u37k based temperatures which may represent winter values at this location were 2 5 c colder during the last glacial maximum than today which is consistent with the february mat estimates the 18o based temperature estimates likely biased toward summer temperatures indicate that the glacial ssts were at least 1 c cooler than today which is comparable to the results of mat august estimates

dirtmap the geological record of dust atmospheric dust is an important feedback in the climate system potentially affecting the radiative balance and chemical composition of the atmosphere and providing nutrients to terrestrial and marine ecosystems yet the potential impact of dust on the climate system both in the anthropogenically disturbed future and the naturally varying past remains to be quantified the geologic record of dust provides the opportunity to test earth system models designed to simulate dust records of dust can be obtained from ice cores marine sediments and terrestrial loess deposits although rarely unequivocal these records document a variety of processes source transport and deposition in the dust cycle stored in each archive as changes in clay mineralogy isotopes grain size and concentration of terrigenous materials although the extraction of information from each type of archive is slightly different the basic controls on these dust indicators are the same changes in the dust flux and particle size might be controlled by a combination of a source area extent b dust emission efficiency wind speed and atmospheric transport c atmospheric residence time of dust and or d relative contributions of dry settling and rainout of dust similarly changes in mineralogy reflect a source area mineralogy and weathering and b shifts in atmospheric transport the combination of these geological data with process based forward modelling schemes in global earth system models provides an excellent means of achieving a comprehensive picture of the global pattern of dust accumulation rates their controlling mechanisms and how those mechanisms may vary regionally the dust indicators and records of terrestrial and marine palaeoenvironments dirtmap data base has been established to provide a global palaeoenvironmental data set that can be used to validate earth system model simulations of the dust cycle over the past 150 000 years

tracing dust input to the global ocean using thorium isotopes in marine sediments thoromap continental dust input into the ocean atmosphere system has significant ramifications for biogeochemical cycles and global climate yet direct observations of dust deposition in the ocean remain scarce the long lived isotope thorium 232 232th is greatly enriched in upper continental crust compared to oceanic crust and mid ocean ridge basalt like volcanogenic material in open ocean sediments away from fluvial and ice rafted sources of continental material 232th is often assumed to be of predominantly eolian origin in conjunction with flux normalization based on the particle reactive radioisotope thorium 230 230th 232th measurements in marine sediments are a promising proxy for dust accumulation in the modern and past ocean here we present thoromap a new global data compilation of 230th normalized fluxes of 232th after careful screening we derive dust deposition estimates in the global ocean averaged for the late holocene 0 4 ka and the last glacial maximum lgm 19 23 ka thoromap is compared with dust deposition estimates derived from the community climate system model ccsm3 and ccsm4 two coupled atmosphere land ocean and sea ice models model data correlation factors are 0 63 ccsm3 and 0 59 ccsm4 in the late holocene and 0 82 ccsm3 and 0 83 ccsm4 in the lgm thoromap is the first compilation that is built on a single specific proxy for dust and that exclusively uses flux normalisation to derive dust deposition rates

provenance and transport of terrigenous sediment in the south atlantic ocean and their relations to glacial and interglacial cycles nd and sr isotopic evidence sr and nd isotopic compositions of late quaternary surface sediment and sediment cores from the south atlantic and southeast pacific sectors of the southern ocean are used to constrain the provenance and transport mechanisms of their terrigenous component we report isotopic and mineralogical data for core samples from three localities the mid atlantic ridge at 41 s and the northern and southern scotia sea in addition data for surface sediment samples from the south atlantic and southeast pacific sectors of the southern ocean are presented the variations of sr and nd isotopic compositions of the bulk sediment samples in all cores were correlated with the magnetic susceptibility of the sediment and with the inferred glacial interglacial stages the isotopic data indicate that during glacial periods sediment was delivered from continental crust with a shorter residence time than that supplying material during interglacial periods at the core site near the mid atlantic ridge nd isotopic combined with mineralogical evidence indicates interglacial period deposition of a relatively high amount of kaolinite and silt with low nd values 4 5 probably derived from southern south america was indicated the glacial interglacial shift in sources may be due to either a decreasing influence of north atlantic deep water during glacial times or by a larger contribution of glaciogenic detritus from southern south america at the core site in the northern scotia sea sediment of interglacial periods is dominated by smectite with nd 4 we suggest that smectite was derived from the falkland shelf and silt was derived from the argentinian shelf during glacial periods the argentinian shelf was an important source for silt and chlorite with nd 4 the contribution from the falkland shelf seems to have remained similar during glacial and interglacial periods hydrographic transport by bottom currents and turbidites could account for the high glacial detrital flux an evaluation of the significance of an aeolian contribution to deep sea sediment suggests that it plays only a minor role in the southern scotia sea the antarctic peninsula is considered an important source for young material with nd 4 in particular during glacial periods during interglacial periods sediment supply from the antarctic peninsula was lower than during glacial times resulting in a relatively high contribution of old material nd 8 from east antarctica deep water currents and icebergs could account for the transport of the old component to the southern scotia sea the accumulation rates of material from the various source regions for glacial times are in agreement with an increase in the strength of the antarctic circumpolar current the production rate and the circulation pattern of bottom water in the weddell sea appear to have remained similar over most of the last 150 kyr

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

quantitative interpretation of atmospheric carbon records over the last glacial termination 1 the glacial interglacial rise in atmospheric pco2 is one of the best known changes in paleoclimate research yet the cause for it is still unknown forcing the coupled ocean atmosphere biosphere box model of the global carbon cycle bicycle with proxy data over the last glacial termination we are able to quantitatively reproduce transient variations in pco2 and its isotopic signatures 13c 14c observed in natural climate archives the sensitivity of the box model of the isotopic carbon cycle bicycle to high or low latitudinal changes is comparable to other multibox models or more complex ocean carbon cycle models respectively the processes considered here ranked by their contribution to the glacial interglacial rise in pco2 in decreasing order are the rise in southern ocean vertical mixing rates 30 ppmv decreases in alkalinity and carbon inventories 30 ppmv the reduction of the biological pump 20 ppmv the rise in ocean temperatures 15 20 ppmv the resumption of ocean circulation 15 20 ppmv and coral reef growth 5 ppmv the regrowth of the terrestrial biosphere sea level rise and the increase in gas exchange through reduced sea ice cover operate in the opposite direction decreasing pco2 during termination i by 30 ppmv according to our model the sequence of events during termination i might have been the following a reduction of aeolian iron fertilization in the southern ocean together with a breakdown in southern ocean stratification the latter caused by rapid sea ice retreat trigger the onset of the pco2 increase after these events the reduced north atlantic deep water nadw formation during the heinrich 1 event and the subsequent resumption of ocean circulation at the beginning of the bolling allerod warm interval are the main processes determining the atmospheric carbon records in the subsequent time period of termination i we further deduce that a complete shutdown of the nadw formation during the younger dryas was very unlikely changes in ocean temperature and the terrestrial carbon storage are the dominant processes explaining atmospheric 13c after the bolling allerod warm interval

comparison of alkenone estimates with other paleotemperature proxies 1 to a certain degree all sea surface temperature sst proxies suffer from uncertainty due to signal preservation problems and to perturbations by other environmental variables however a multiproxy reconstruction is justified because most biases should in principle cancel out as they are specific to the biological groups and or to the analyzed chemical species such a multiproxy strategy has proven crucial for calibrating these proxies and is also useful in assessing downcore profiles until now there have been only a dozen deep sea cores where it is possible to compare directly alkenone based ssts with other paleotemperature records from this still limited data set the broad picture is of general agreement for the amplitude of changes at low and middle latitudes the few observed discrepancies suggest that alkenone based temperatures are more comparable to those based on mg ca ratios than those obtained through statistical analysis of the foraminiferal distribution more systematic differences are noted at higher latitudes where alkenones indicate warmer temperatures during the glacial period than transfer functions based on foraminifera or diatoms several reasons have been invoked to resolve the mismatch but more ground truthing work is needed before deciding which temperature changes are the most accurate

biomarker evidence for heinrich events the so called heinrich layers found in north atlantic sediments have been attributed to quasi periodic discharges of armadas of icebergs originating from the laurentide ice sheet using the distribution of biomarkers in a sediment core bofs 5k we have attempted to provide more information about their origin and the effect of the heinrich events on oceanic circulation and the climatic system estimates of sea surface temperature changes via u3k7 measurements show that the surface ocean underwent significant cooling during the events probably as a result of incoming iceberg meltwater the low sea temperatures and the rapid variation in the accumulation of chlorophyll derived pigments suggest that the events provoked a major change in oceanographic conditions which may have affected the thermohaline circulation in the atlantic ocean within the most recent layers we have also found vanadyl alkyl porphyrins and aryl isoprenoid hydrocarbons diagenetic products of photosynthetic pig ments chlorophylls and carotenoids respectively these components are not expected to occur in late quaternary sediments so their presence demonstrates a contribution to the layers of ancient organic rich sedimentary material of continental origin the presence of vanadyl porphyrins and absence of their nickel counterparts and the distributional features of the aryl isoprenoids e g presence of the c40 reduced carotenoid isorenieratane of green sulphur bacterial origin indicate the existence of anoxic conditions in the photic zone of a marine water column in the original depositional setting of the contributed ancient sediment these results suggest that it should be possible using a biomarker correla tion approach to determine the source area of the ancient sediment eroded by the icebergs copyright 1997 elsevier science ltd

ice loss from the east antarctic ice sheet during late pleistocene interglacials understanding ice sheet behaviour in the geological past is essential for evaluating the role of the cryosphere in the climate system and for projecting rates and magnitudes of sea level rise in future warming scenarios1 4 although both geological data5 7 and ice sheet models3 8 indicate that marine based sectors of the east antarctic ice sheet were unstable during pliocene warm intervals the ice sheet dynamics during late pleistocene interglacial intervals are highly uncertain3 9 10 here we provide evidence from marine sedimentological and geochemical records for ice margin retreat or thinning in the vicinity of the wilkes subglacial basin of east antarctica during warm late pleistocene interglacial intervals the most extreme changes in sediment provenance recording changes in the locus of glacial erosion occurred during marine isotope stages 5 9 and 11 when antarctic air temperatures11 were at least two degrees celsius warmer than pre industrial temperatures for 2 500 years or more hence our study indicates a close link between extended antarctic warmth and ice loss from the wilkes subglacial basin providing ice proximal data to support a contribution to sea level from a reduced east antarctic ice sheet during warm interglacial intervals while the behaviour of other regions of the east antarctic ice sheet remains to be assessed it appears that modest future warming may be sufficient to cause ice loss from the wilkes subglacial basin studies of an antarctic marine sediment core suggest that the east antarctic ice sheet retreated in the vicinity of the wilkes subglacial basin during extended warm periods of the late pleistocene when temperatures were similar to those predicted to occur within this century

ammonium and non sea salt sulfate in the epica ice cores as indicator of biological activity in the southern ocean sulfate so42 and ammonium nh4 flux records over the last 150 000 years from both antarctic epica ice cores european project for ice coring in antarctica are presented the ice core record from dome c is influenced by the indian sector of the southern ocean so whereas dronning maud land is facing the atlantic sector generally they reflect the past atmospheric aerosol load and thus potentially reveal the fingerprint of marine biogenic sources from the so the most important feature of both the nssso 4 2 as well as nh4 flux records is the absence of any significant glacial cycles in contrary to the distinct transitions for mineral dust and sea salt aerosol over the last 150 000 years this finding challenges the iron fertilization hypothesis on long time scales as the significant changes in dust e g from the last glacial maximum toward the holocene have neither an impact on nssso 4 2 nor on nh4 fluxes found in interior antarctica the inter site correlation of both species is weak r 2 0 42 for the nssso 4 2 flux and r 2 0 12 for the nh4 flux respectively emphasizing the local source characteristics of biogenic aerosol from the so millennial variability in nh4 and nssso 4 2 is within the uncertainty of our flux estimates correlation with mineral dust and sea ice derived sodium shows only a very weak influence of dust deposition on those insignificant changes in nssso 4 2 flux for the atlantic sector of the southern ocean but also small transport changes or terrigeneous sulfate contributions may contribute to those variations at edml c 2009 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

sedimentary iron records from the cape basin abstract the iron hypothesis suggests that dust derived fe delivered to the southern ocean during glacial intervals fueled primary productivity and led to co 2 drawdown clear support for a dustier glacial atmosphere comes from ice core records of dust concentrations furthermore there is unequivocal proof from open ocean fe fertilization experiments that primary productivity in the modern day southern ocean is limited by fe however substantial hemipelagic detrital sources dilute and obscure the eolian signal here we present records of fe concentrations total and reducible and fe fluxes to highlight the importance of hemipelagic fe sources to the cape basin we illustrate that on average only 7 of the fe flux to site 1089 can be accounted for by particle settling indicating that redistribution by bottom currents accounts for an order of magnitude more fe than particulate scavenging processes distribution by surface currents or eolian deposition we also find that on average only 7 of the fe content is easily reducible furthermore we speculate that a significant source of dissolved fe to the bottom waters may come from re suspended bottom sediments

evolution of ocean temperature and ice volume through the mid pleistocene climate transition earth s climate underwent a fundamental change between 1250 and 700 thousand years ago the mid pleistocene transition mpt when the dominant periodicity of climate cycles changed from 41 thousand to 100 thousand years in the absence of substantial change in orbital forcing over this time an increase occurred in the amplitude of change of deep ocean foraminiferal oxygen isotopic ratios traditionally interpreted as defining the main rhythm of ice ages although containing large effects of changes in deep ocean temperature we have separated the effects of decreasing temperature and increasing global ice volume on oxygen isotope ratios our results suggest that the mpt was initiated by an abrupt increase in antarctic ice volume 900 thousand years ago we see no evidence of a pattern of gradual cooling but near freezing temperatures occur at every glacial maximum

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

subpolar link to the emergence of the modern equatorial pacific cold tongue the cold upwelling tongue of the eastern equatorial pacific is a central energetic feature of the ocean dominating both the mean state and temporal variability of climate in the tropics and beyond recent evidence for the development of the modern cold tongue during the pliocene pleistocene transition has been explained as the result of extratropical cooling that drove a shoaling of the thermocline we have found that the sub antarctic and sub arctic regions underwent substantial cooling nearly synchronous to the cold tongue development thereby providing support for this hypothesis in addition we show that sub antarctic climate changed in its response to earth s orbital variations from a subtropical to a subpolar pattern as expected if cooling shrank the warm water sphere of the ocean and thus contracted the subtropical gyres

last glacial holocene climate variability in the atlantic sector of the southern ocean abstract the southern ocean plays a major role in the glacial interglacial global carbon cycle however there is a substantial lack of information from its antarctic zone south of the polar front pf to understand key climate processes e g sea ice variability productivity changes co2 source region shifts of the southern westerly wind active in this region during the glacial interglacial transition due to the limited high resolution sediment records from this area to close this gap we investigated high resolution diatom records from a series of sediment cores from the atlantic and western indian sectors of the southern ocean between the modern pf and the winter sea ice wsi edge summer sea surface temperature ssst and sea ice information spanning the past 30 thousand years were derived from diatom transfer functions and indicators which augment comprehensive information on past surface ocean conditions and related ocean and atmospheric circulation as well as opal deposition these complementary lines of evidences also provide important environmental boundary conditions for climate simulations understanding the past climate development in the high latitudes southern ocean our reconstructions show that the last glacial lg sssts south of the modern pf are 1 3 c colder than modern conditions wsi expanded to the modern pf our data suggests effective carbon export in the antarctic zone during the lg deglacial two steps of warming support the bipolar seesaw mechanism antarctic zone is an important source region for the co2 deglacial increase the warming was more suppressed towards south due to continuous ice discharge from antarctica the sssts exceeded modern values during the early holocene optimum when wsi extent probably retreated south of its modern position the southern boundary of maximum opal deposition zone may have shifted to south of 55 s in the bouvet island area at this time the mid late holocene cooling with wsi re expanding to the bouvet island area probably related to enhanced cold water export by the weddell gyre from the developing cavity under the west antarctic ice shelf the cooling also suggests a northward shift of the southern westerly wind at least its southern boundary

glacial interglacial variability in the delivery of dust to the central equatorial pacific ocean abstract fluxes of continental mineral aerosols dust were greater during glacial periods than during interglacials throughout most regions of the earth the equatorial pacific ocean was a possible exception to this pattern in that previous studies have reported either greater dust fluxes during interglacials or no consistent glacial interglacial pattern of dust flux we have applied the 230th normalization technique to derive five new records of dust flux from central equatorial pacific ocean sediments in contrast to previous studies which relied on stratigraphic accumulation rates the 230th normalization technique produces internally consistent results revealing fluxes to this region of continental lithogenic material that were positively correlated with global ice volume throughout the past 300 000 yr maximum glacial fluxes of continental mineral aerosols exceed minimum interglacial fluxes by about a factor of 2 similar to changes found elsewhere at low and mid latitudes this amplitude of variability is substantially smaller than that seen in some recent models and these observations provide a calibration point for future model development

atmospheric iron fluxes over the last deglaciation climatic implications a decrease in the micronutrient iron supply to the southern ocean is widely believed to be involved in the atmospheric co2 increase during the last deglaciation here we report the first record of atmospheric iron fluxes as determined in 166 samples of the dome c ice core and covering the last glacial interglacial transition 22 9 kyr b p it reveals a decrease in fallout flux from 24 10 2 mg fe m 2 yr 1 during the last glacial maximum to 0 7 10 2 mg fe m 2 yr 1 at the onset of the holocene the acid leachable fraction of iron determined in our samples was the 60 of the total iron mass in glacial samples about twice the value found for holocene samples this emerging difference in iron solubility over different climatic stages provides a new insight for evaluating the iron hypothesis over glacial interglacial periods

lowering of glacial atmospheric co2 in response to changes in oceanic circulation and marine biogeochemistry 1 we use an earth system model of intermediate complexity climber 2 to investigate what recent improvements in the representation of the physics and biology of the glacial ocean imply for the atmospheric concentration the coupled atmosphere ocean model under the glacial boundary conditions is able to reproduce the deep salty stagnant water mass inferred from antarctic deep pore water data and the changing temperature of the entire deep ocean when carbonate compensation is included in the model we find a co2 drawdown of 43 ppmv associated mainly with the shoaling of the atlantic thermohaline circulation and an increased fraction of water masses of southern origin in the deep atlantic fertilizing the atlantic and indian sectors of the southern ocean north of the polar front leads to a further drawdown of 37 ppmv other changes to the glacial carbon cycle include a decrease in the amount of carbon stored in the terrestrial biosphere 540 pg c which increases atmospheric co2 by 15 ppmv and a change in ocean salinity resulting from a drop in sea level which elevates co2 by another 12 ppmv a decrease in shallow water caco3 deposition draws down co2 by 12 ppmv in total the model is able to explain more than two thirds 65 ppmv of the glacial to interglacial co2 change based only on mechanisms that are clearly documented in the proxy data a good match between simulated and reconstructed distribution of 13c changes in the deep atlantic suggests that the model captures the mechanisms of reorganization of biogeochemistry in the atlantic ocean reasonably well additional poorly constrained mechanisms to explain the rest of the observed drawdown include changes in the organic carbon caco3 ratio of sediment rain reaching the seafloor iron fertilization in the subantarctic pacific ocean and changes in terrestrial weathering

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

linkages between rapid climate variability and deep sea benthic foraminifera in the deep subantarctic south atlantic during the last 95 kyr we present a high resolution record of benthic foraminifera fauna from a sediment core retrieved from the south cape basin subantarctic south atlantic spanning the last glacial cycle 95 kyr information provided by benthic foraminiferal assemblages together with paleoclimate proxies from the same core allow us to interpret changes in the style of primary production episodic versus sustained in relation to abrupt climate oscillations our results indicate that fluctuations in the abundance of the phytodetritus related species epistominella exigua are concomitant with millennial scale high latitude climate perturbations episodic phytoplankton blooms increased during a negative mode of the bipolar seesaw irrespective of the magnitude of the perturbation i e heinrich stadial versus non heinrich stadial events we provide a hypothesis linking the frequency and intensity of these events to atmospheric perturbations interhemispheric climate variability and millennial scale changes in atmospheric co2 a notable exception to the overall pattern is the generally high abundance of e exigua across the globally synchronous onset of glacial marine oxygen isotope stage mis 4 a period generally characterized by increased dustiness and low quality organic carbon as inferred by the percentage of the nonphytodetritus species this highlights the special characteristics governing the onset of mis 4 in the subantarctic

contributions from glacially derived sediment to the global iron oxyhydr oxide cycle implications for iron delivery to the oceans estimates of glacial sediment delivery to the oceans have been derived from fluxes of meltwater runoff and iceberg calving and their sediment loads the combined total 2900 tg yr 1 of the suspended sediment load in meltwaters 1400 tg yr 1 and the sediment delivered by icebergs 1500 tg yr 1 are within the range of earlier estimates high resolution microscopic observations show that suspended sediments from glacial meltwaters supraglacial and proglacial sediments and sediments in basal ice from arctic alpine and antarctic locations all contain iron oxyhydr oxide nanoparticles which are poorly crystalline typically 5 nm in diameter and which occur as single grains or aggregates that may be isolated or attached to sediment grains nanoparticles with these characteristics are potentially bioavailable a global model comparing the sources and sinks of iron present as oxyhydr oxides indicates that sediment delivered by icebergs is a significant source of iron to the open oceans beyond the continental shelf iceberg delivery of sediment containing iron as oxyhydr oxides during the last glacial maximum may have been sufficient to fertilise the increase in oceanic productivity required to drawdown atmospheric co2 to the levels observed in ice cores

interhemispheric appraisal of the value of alkenone indices as temperature and salinity proxies in high latitude locations alkenone sediment data from the nordic seas and north atlantic are compared to those from sikes et al 1997 for the southern ocean to evaluate further uk37 and uk37 as proxies to estimate cold temperatures 10 c and the effect of salinity and temperature in the relative abundance of 37 4 to the total abundance of c37 alkenones 37 4 uk37 and uk37 are found to be equally viable as proxies but there are significant regional differences in their cold temperature dependence the measurement of 37 4 in cores from the north atlantic region can be used to identify situations when uk37 is not a reliable paleothermometer variations in salinity are probably responsible for changes in the sedimentary record of 37 4 and a preliminary calibration has been obtained for 37 4 f salinity this new relationship should be further confirmed through field or laboratory experiments but it paves the way to derive a molecular proxy to reconstruct paleosalinity in surface waters