Climate Change Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Climate Change, including details on causes, effects, impact, facts, myths, information.

Southern Hemisphere and deep-sea warming led deglacial atmospheric CO2 rise and tropical warming.

Stott L, Timmermann A, Thunell R

Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. stott@usc.edu

Establishing what caused Earth's largest climatic changes in the past requires a precise knowledge of both the forcing and the regional responses. We determined the chronology of high- and low-latitude climate change at the last glacial termination by radiocarbon dating benthic and planktonic foraminiferal stable isotope and magnesium/calcium records from a marine core collected in the western tropical Pacific. Deep-sea temperatures warmed by approximately 2 degrees C between 19 and 17 thousand years before the present (ky B.P.), leading the rise in atmospheric CO2 and tropical-surface-ocean warming by approximately 1000 years. The cause of this deglacial deep-water warming does not lie within the tropics, nor can its early onset between 19 and 17 ky B.P. be attributed to CO2 forcing. Increasing austral-spring insolation combined with sea-ice albedo feedbacks appear to be the key factors responsible for this warming.

Published 19 October 2007 in Science, 318(5849): 435-8.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Climate Change Research Today. All Rights Reserved.