Northern Hemisphere forcing of climatic cycles in Antarctica over the past 360,000 years

The Milankovitch theory of climate change proposes that glacial-interglacial cycles are driven by changes in summer insolation at high northern latitudes. The timing of climate change in the Southern Hemisphere at glacial-interglacial transitions (which are known as terminations) relative to variations in summer insolation in the Northern Hemisphere is an important test of this hypothesis. So far, it has only been possible to apply this test to the most recent termination, because the dating uncertainty associated with older terminations is too large to allow phase relationships to be determined. Here we present a new chronology of Antarctic climate change over the past 360,000 years that is based on the ratio of oxygen to nitrogen molecules in air trapped in the Dome Fuji and Vostok ice cores. This ratio is a proxy for local summer insolation, and thus allows the chronology to be constructed by orbital tuning without the need to assume a lag between a climate record and an orbital parameter. The accuracy of the chronology allows us to examine the phase relationships between climate records from the ice cores and changes in insolation. Our results indicate that orbital-scale Antarctic climate change lags Northern Hemisphere insolation by a few millennia, and that the increases in Antarctic temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration during the last four terminations occurred within the rising phase of Northern Hemisphere summer insolation. These results support the Milankovitch theory that Northern Hemisphere summer insolation triggered the last four deglaciations.     

Regional insolation forcing of late Quaternary climate change in the Southern Hemisphere

In agreement with the Milankovitch orbital forcing hypothesis it is often assumed that glacial-interglacial climate transitions occurred synchronously in the Northern and Southern hemispheres of the Earth. It is difficult to test this assumption, because of the paucity of long, continuous climate records from the Southern Hemisphere that have not been dated by tuning them to the presumed Northern Hemisphere signals. Here we present an independently dated terrestrial pollen record from a peat bog on South Island, New Zealand, to investigate global and local factors in Southern Hemisphere climate changes during the last two glacial-interglacial cycles. Our record largely corroborates the Milankovitch model of orbital forcing but also exhibits some differences: in particular, an earlier onset and longer duration of the Last Glacial Maximum. Our results suggest that Southern Hemisphere insolation may have been responsible for these differences in timing. Our findings question the validity of applying orbital tuning to Southern Hemisphere records and suggest an alternative mechanism to the bipolar seesaw for generating interhemispheric asynchrony in climate change.     

Antarctic accumulation seasonality

The resemblance of the orbitally filtered isotope signal from the past 340 kyr in Antarctic ice cores to Northern Hemisphere summer insolation intensity has been used to suggest that the northern hemisphere may drive orbital-scale global climate changes. A recent Letter by Laepple et al. suggests that, contrary to this interpretation, this semblance may instead be explained by weighting the orbitally controlled Antarctic seasonal insolation cycle with a static (present-day) estimate of the seasonal cycle of accumulation. We suggest, however, that both time variability in accumulation seasonality and alternative stable seasonality can markedly alter the weighted insolation signal. This indicates that, if the last 340 kyr of Antarctic accumulation has not always looked like the estimate of precipitation and accumulation seasonality made by Laepple et al., this particular accumulation weighting explanation of the Antarctic orbital-scale isotopic signal might not be robust.     

Microparticle record in the Guliya ice core and its comparison with polar records since the last interglacial

Based on the study of oxygen isotope and microparticle in the Guliya ice core,atmospheric dust and environmental changes in the northwest Tibetan Plateau since the last interglacial were revealed.The microparticle record indicates that low dust load on the Plateau in the interglacial.Particle concentration increased rapidly when the climate turned into the last glacial and reached the maximum during the MIS 4.In the Last Glacial Maximum, however,the enhancement of microparticle concentration was slight,differing to those in the Antarctic and Greenland.On the orbital timescale,both the temperature on the Tibetan Plateau and summer solar insolation in the Northern Hemisphere had their impact on the microparticle record,but the difference in phase and amplitude also existed. Though having the same dust source, microparticle records in the ice cores on the Tibetan Plateau and the Greenland seem to have different significance.     

Evidence from U-Th dating against Northern Hemisphere forcing of the penultimate deglaciation

Milankovitch proposed that summer insolation at mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere directly causes the ice-age climate cycles. This would imply that times of ice-sheet collapse should correspond to peaks in Northern Hemisphere June insolation. But the penultimate deglaciation has proved controversial because June insolation peaks 127 kyr ago whereas several records of past climate suggest that change may have occurred up to 15 kyr earlier. There is a clear signature of the penultimate deglaciation in marine oxygen-isotope records. But dating this event, which is significantly before the 14C age range, has not been possible. Here we date the penultimate deglaciation in a record from the Bahamas using a new U-Th isochron technique. After the necessary corrections for alpha-recoil mobility of 234U and 230Th and a small age correction for sediment mixing, the midpoint age for the penultimate deglaciation is determined to be 135 +/- 2.5 kyr ago. This age is consistent with some coral-based sea-level estimates, but it is difficult to reconcile with June Northern Hemisphere insolation as the trigger for the ice-age cycles. Potential alternative driving mechanisms for the ice-age cycles that are consistent with such an early date for the penultimate deglaciation are either the variability of the tropical ocean-atmosphere system or changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration controlled by a process in the Southern Hemisphere.     

Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation

The covariation of carbon dioxide (CO(2)) concentration and temperature in Antarctic ice-core records suggests a close link between CO(2) and climate during the Pleistocene ice ages. The role and relative importance of CO(2) in producing these climate changes remains unclear, however, in part because the ice-core deuterium record reflects local rather than global temperature. Here we construct a record of global surface temperature from 80 proxy records and show that temperature is correlated with and generally lags CO(2) during the last (that is, the most recent) deglaciation. Differences between the respective temperature changes of the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere parallel variations in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation recorded in marine sediments. These observations, together with transient global climate model simulations, support the conclusion that an antiphased hemispheric temperature response to ocean circulation changes superimposed on globally in-phase warming driven by increasing CO(2) concentrations is an explanation for much of the temperature change at the end of the most recent ice age.     

North Pacific seasonality and the glaciation of North America 2.7 million years ago

In the context of gradual Cenozoic cooling, the timing of the onset of significant Northern Hemisphere glaciation 2.7 million years ago is consistent with Milankovitch's orbital theory, which posited that ice sheets grow when polar summertime insolation and temperature are low. However, the role of moisture supply in the initiation of large Northern Hemisphere ice sheets has remained unclear. The subarctic Pacific Ocean represents a significant source of water vapour to boreal North America, but it has been largely overlooked in efforts to explain Northern Hemisphere glaciation. Here we present alkenone unsaturation ratios and diatom oxygen isotope ratios from a sediment core in the western subarctic Pacific Ocean, indicating that 2.7 million years ago late-summer sea surface temperatures in this ocean region rose in response to an increase in stratification. At the same time, winter sea surface temperatures cooled, winter floating ice became more abundant and global climate descended into glacial conditions. We suggest that the observed summer warming extended into the autumn, providing water vapour to northern North America, where it precipitated and accumulated as snow, and thus allowed the initiation of Northern Hemisphere glaciation.     

Millennial- and orbital-scale changes in the East Asian monsoon over the past 224,000 years

High-resolution speleothem records from China have provided insights into the factors that control the strength of the East Asian monsoon. Our understanding of these factors remains incomplete, however, owing to gaps in the record of monsoon history over the past two interglacial-glacial cycles. In particular, missing sections have hampered our ability to test ideas about orbital-scale controls on the monsoon, the causes of millennial-scale events and relationships between changes in the monsoon and climate in other regions. Here we present an absolute-dated oxygen isotope record from Sanbao cave, central China, that completes a Chinese-cave-based record of the strength of the East Asian monsoon that covers the past 224,000 years. The record is dominated by 23,000-year-long cycles that are synchronous within dating errors with summer insolation at 65 degrees N (ref. 10), supporting the idea that tropical/subtropical monsoons respond dominantly and directly to changes in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation on orbital timescales. The cycles are punctuated by millennial-scale strong-summer-monsoon events (Chinese interstadials), and the new record allows us to identify the complete series of these events over the past two interglacial-glacial cycles. Their duration decreases and their frequency increases during glacial build-up in both the last and penultimate glacial periods, indicating that ice sheet size affects their character and pacing. The ages of the events are exceptionally well constrained and may thus serve as benchmarks for correlating and calibrating climate records.     

Insolation-driven changes in atmospheric circulation over the past 116,000 years in subtropical Brazil

During the last glacial period, large millennial-scale temperature oscillations--the 'Dansgaard/Oeschger' cycles--were the primary climate signal in Northern Hemisphere climate archives from the high latitudes to the tropics. But whether the influence of these abrupt climate changes extended to the tropical and subtropical Southern Hemisphere, where changes in insolation are thought to be the main direct forcing of climate, has remained unclear. Here we present a high-resolution oxygen isotope record of a U/Th-dated stalagmite from subtropical southern Brazil, covering the past 116,200 years. The oxygen isotope signature varies with shifts in the source region and amount of rainfall in the area, and hence records changes in atmospheric circulation and convective intensity over South America. We find that these variations in rainfall source and amount are primarily driven by summer solar radiation, which is controlled by the Earth's precessional cycle. The Dansgaard/Oeschger cycles can be detected in our record and therefore we confirm that they also affect the tropical hydrological cycle, but that in southern subtropical Brazil, millennial-scale climate changes are not as dominant as they are in the Northern Hemisphere.     

Holocene Southern Ocean surface temperature variability west of the Antarctic Peninsula

The disintegration of ice shelves, reduced sea-ice and glacier extent, and shifting ecological zones observed around Antarctica highlight the impact of recent atmospheric and oceanic warming on the cryosphere. Observations and models suggest that oceanic and atmospheric temperature variations at Antarctica's margins affect global cryosphere stability, ocean circulation, sea levels and carbon cycling. In particular, recent climate changes on the Antarctic Peninsula have been dramatic, yet the Holocene climate variability of this region is largely unknown, limiting our ability to evaluate ongoing changes within the context of historical variability and underlying forcing mechanisms. Here we show that surface ocean temperatures at the continental margin of the western Antarctic Peninsula cooled by 3-4 °C over the past 12,000 years, tracking the Holocene decline of local (65° S) spring insolation. Our results, based on TEX(86) sea surface temperature (SST) proxy evidence from a marine sediment core, indicate the importance of regional summer duration as a driver of Antarctic seasonal sea-ice fluctuations. On millennial timescales, abrupt SST fluctuations of 2-4 °C coincide with globally recognized climate variability. Similarities between our SSTs, Southern Hemisphere westerly wind reconstructions and El Ni?o/Southern Oscillation variability indicate that present climate teleconnections between the tropical Pacific Ocean and the western Antarctic Peninsula strengthened late in the Holocene epoch. We conclude that during the Holocene, Southern Ocean temperatures at the western Antarctic Peninsula margin were tied to changes in the position of the westerlies, which have a critical role in global carbon cycling.     

Orbital- and millennial-scale variability of the Asian monsoon during MIS8 from Sanbao Cave at Mount Shennongjia,central China

One stalagmite oxygen isotope record from Sanbao Cave, China, established with 7 230Th ages and 355 oxygen isotope data, pro- vides a continuous history of the East Asian Monsoon (EAM) intensity for the period from 284 to 240 thousand years before present (ka BP) with typical errors of 3―4 ka. This new record extends the previously published stalagmite δ18O record back to the marine oxygen isotope stage (MIS) 8. The MIS8 EAM record broadly follows orbitally-induced insolation variations and is punctuated by...     

Atlantic overturning responses to Late Pleistocene climate forcings

The factors driving glacial changes in ocean overturning circulation are not well understood. On the basis of a comparison of 20 climate variables over the past four glacial cycles, the SPECMAP project proposed that summer insolation at high northern latitudes (that is, Milankovitch forcing) drives the same sequence of ocean circulation and other climate responses over 100-kyr eccentricity cycles, 41-kyr obliquity cycles and 23-kyr precession cycles. SPECMAP analysed the circulation response at only a few sites in the Atlantic Ocean, however, and the phase of circulation response has been shown to vary by site and orbital band. Here we test the SPECMAP hypothesis by measuring the phase of orbital responses in benthic delta(13)C (a proxy indicator of ocean nutrient content) at 24 sites throughout the Atlantic over the past 425 kyr. On the basis of delta(13)C responses at 3,000-4,010 m water depth, we find that maxima in Milankovitch forcing are associated with greater mid-depth overturning in the obliquity band but less overturning in the precession band. This suggests that Atlantic overturning is strongly sensitive to factors beyond ice volume and summer insolation at high northern latitudes. A better understanding of these processes could lead to improvements in model estimates of overturning rates, which range from a 40 per cent increase to a 40 per cent decrease at the Last Glacial Maximum and a 10-50 per cent decrease over the next 140 yr in response to projected increases in atmospheric CO(2) (ref. 4).     

Increased seasonality in Middle East temperatures during the last interglacial period

The last interglacial period (about 125,000 years ago) is thought to have been at least as warm as the present climate. Owing to changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun, it is thought that insolation in the Northern Hemisphere varied more strongly than today on seasonal timescales, which would have led to corresponding changes in the seasonal temperature cycle. Here we present seasonally resolved proxy records using corals from the northernmost Red Sea, which record climate during the last interglacial period, the late Holocene epoch and the present. We find an increased seasonality in the temperature recorded in the last interglacial coral. Today, climate in the northern Red Sea is sensitive to the North Atlantic Oscillation, a climate oscillation that strongly influences winter temperatures and precipitation in the North Atlantic region. From our coral records and simulations with a coupled atmosphere-ocean circulation model, we conclude that a tendency towards the high-index state of the North Atlantic Oscillation during the last interglacial period, which is consistent with European proxy records, contributed to the larger amplitude of the seasonal cycle in the Middle East.     

Magnitude and timing of temperature change in the Indo-Pacific warm pool during deglaciation

Ocean-atmosphere interactions in the tropical Pacific region have a strong influence on global heat and water vapour transport and thus constitute an important component of the climate system. Changes in sea surface temperatures and convection in the tropical Indo-Pacific region are thought to be responsible for the interannual to decadal climate variability observed in extra-tropical regions, but the role of the tropics in climate changes on millennial and orbital timescales is less clear. Here we analyse oxygen isotopes and Mg/Ca ratios of foraminiferal shells from the Makassar strait in the heart of the Indo-Pacific warm pool, to obtain synchronous estimates of sea surface temperatures and ice volume. We find that sea surface temperatures increased by 3.5-4.0 degrees C during the last two glacial-interglacial transitions, synchronous with the global increase in atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic warming, but the temperature increase occurred 2,000-3,000 years before the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets melted. Our observations suggest that the tropical Pacific region plays an important role in driving glacial-interglacial cycles, possibly through a system similar to how El Ni?o/Southern Oscillation regulates the poleward flux of heat and water vapour.     

High-resolution record of Northern Hemisphere climate extending into the last interglacial period

Two deep ice cores from central Greenland, drilled in the 1990s, have played a key role in climate reconstructions of the Northern Hemisphere, but the oldest sections of the cores were disturbed in chronology owing to ice folding near the bedrock. Here we present an undisturbed climate record from a North Greenland ice core, which extends back to 123,000 years before the present, within the last interglacial period. The oxygen isotopes in the ice imply that climate was stable during the last interglacial period, with temperatures 5 degrees C warmer than today. We find unexpectedly large temperature differences between our new record from northern Greenland and the undisturbed sections of the cores from central Greenland, suggesting that the extent of ice in the Northern Hemisphere modulated the latitudinal temperature gradients in Greenland. This record shows a slow decline in temperatures that marked the initiation of the last glacial period. Our record reveals a hitherto unrecognized warm period initiated by an abrupt climate warming about 115,000 years ago, before glacial conditions were fully developed. This event does not appear to have an immediate Antarctic counterpart, suggesting that the climate see-saw between the hemispheres (which dominated the last glacial period) was not operating at this time.     

Effect of precession on the Asian summer monsoon evolution: A systematic review

Geological climatic records and model simulations on the Asian summer monsoon climate change induced by insolation forcing of the Earth＇s precession are systematically reviewed in this paper. The presentation of the questions on the mechanism of the Asian monsoon evolution at the precession band, currently existing debates and future research directions are discussed. Since the early 1980s, more and more observed evidence and simulated results, especially the absolute-dated stalagmite records and orbital-scale transient model runs in the last few years, have indicated that the quasi-20ka period in the Quaternary monsoon climate change is caused by precession. However, debates still exist on the dynamic mechanism how precession affects the Asian monsoon. The ＂zero phase＂ hypothesis says that the Asian monsoon is merely controlled by summer insolation in the Northern Hemisphere （NH） while the ＂latent heat＂ hypothesis emphasizes the dominant effect of latent heat transport from the Southern Hemisphere （SH） besides the role of the northern insolation. The two hypotheses have separately been supported by some evidence. Although we are cognizant of the importance of northern solar radiation and the remote effect of southern insolation, it has still a long way to go before comprehensively understanding the evolutionary mechanism of the Asian monsoon. In view of the problems existing in present researches of monsoon-dominated climate change at the precession scale, we propose that studies on the environmental significance of geological monsoon proxies, feedback processes in the long-term transient simulations and intercomparisons between observations and modeling results should be strengthened in the future.     

Tropical climate changes at millennial and orbital timescales on the Bolivian Altiplano

Tropical South America is one of the three main centres of the global, zonal overturning circulation of the equatorial atmosphere (generally termed the 'Walker' circulation). Although this area plays a key role in global climate cycles, little is known about South American climate history. Here we describe sediment cores and down-hole logging results of deep drilling in the Salar de Uyuni, on the Bolivian Altiplano, located in the tropical Andes. We demonstrate that during the past 50,000 years the Altiplano underwent important changes in effective moisture at both orbital (20,000-year) and millennial timescales. Long-duration wet periods, such as the Last Glacial Maximum--marked in the drill core by continuous deposition of lacustrine sediments--appear to have occurred in phase with summer insolation maxima produced by the Earth's precessional cycle. Short-duration, millennial events correlate well with North Atlantic cold events, including Heinrich events 1 and 2, as well as the Younger Dryas episode. At both millennial and orbital timescales, cold sea surface temperatures in the high-latitude North Atlantic were coeval with wet conditions in tropical South America, suggesting a common forcing.     

Forcing of wet phases in southeast Africa over the past 17,000 years

Intense debate persists about the climatic mechanisms governing hydrologic changes in tropical and subtropical southeast Africa since the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000?years ago. In particular, the relative importance of atmospheric and oceanic processes is not firmly established. Southward shifts of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) driven by high-latitude climate changes have been suggested as a primary forcing, whereas other studies infer a predominant influence of Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures on regional rainfall changes. To address this question, a continuous record representing an integrated signal of regional climate variability is required, but has until now been missing. Here we show that remote atmospheric forcing by cold events in the northern high latitudes appears to have been the main driver of hydro-climatology in southeast Africa during rapid climate changes over the past 17,000 years. Our results are based on a reconstruction of precipitation and river discharge changes, as recorded in a marine sediment core off the mouth of the Zambezi River, near the southern boundary of the modern seasonal ITCZ migration. Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures did not exert a primary control over southeast African hydrologic variability. Instead, phases of high precipitation and terrestrial discharge occurred when the ITCZ was forced southwards during Northern Hemisphere cold events, such as Heinrich stadial 1 (around 16,000?years ago) and the Younger Dryas (around 12,000?years ago), or when local summer insolation was high in the late Holocene, that is, during the past 4,000?years.     

North American ice-sheet dynamics and the onset of 100,000-year glacial cycles

The onset of major glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere about 2.7 million years ago was most probably induced by climate cooling during the late Pliocene epoch. These glaciations, during which the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets successively expanded and retreated, are superimposed on this long-term climate trend, and have been linked to variations in the Earth's orbital parameters. One intriguing problem associated with orbitally driven glacial cycles is the transition from 41,000-year to 100,000-year climatic cycles that occurred without an apparent change in insolation forcing. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the transition, both including and excluding ice-sheet dynamics. Difficulties in finding a conclusive answer to this palaeoclimatic problem are related to the lack of sufficiently long records of ice-sheet volume or sea level. Here we use a comprehensive ice-sheet model and a simple ocean-temperature model to extract three-million-year mutually consistent records of surface air temperature, ice volume and sea level from marine benthic oxygen isotopes. Although these records and their relative phasings are subject to considerable uncertainty owing to limited availability of palaeoclimate constraints, the results suggest that the gradual emergence of the 100,000-year cycles can be attributed to the increased ability of the merged North American ice sheets to survive insolation maxima and reach continental-scale size. The oversized, wet-based ice sheet probably responded to the subsequent insolation maximum by rapid thinning through increased basal-sliding, thereby initiating a glacial termination. Based on our assessment of the temporal changes in air temperature and ice volume during individual glacials, we demonstrate the importance of ice dynamics and ice-climate interactions in establishing the 100,000-year glacial cycles, with enhanced North American ice-sheet growth and the subsequent merging of the ice sheets being key elements.     

Simulating the amplification of orbital forcing by ocean feedbacks in the last glaciation

According to Milankovitch theory, the lower summer insolation at high latitudes about 115,000 years ago allowed winter snow to persist throughout summer, leading to ice-sheet build-up and glaciation. But attempts to simulate the last glaciation using global atmospheric models have failed to produce this outcome when forced by insolation changes only. These results point towards the importance of feedback effects-for example, through changes in vegetation or the ocean circulation-for the amplification of solar forcing. Here we present a fully coupled ocean-atmosphere model of the last glaciation that produces a build-up of perennial snow cover at known locations of ice sheets during this period. We show that ocean feedbacks lead to a cooling of the high northern latitudes, along with an increase in atmospheric moisture transport from the Equator to the poles. These changes agree with available geological data and, together, they lead to an increased delivery of snow to high northern latitudes. The mechanism we present explains the onset of glaciation-which would be amplified by changes in vegetation-in response to weak orbital forcing.