Abrupt climate changes and the astronomical theory: are they related?

• Published in: Climate of the Past
• Main Authors: Rousseau, Denis-Didier, Bagniewski, Witold, Ghil, Michael
• Other Authors: Géosciences Montpellier, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université des Antilles (UA)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS), Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539) (LMD), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X)-École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Département des Géosciences - ENS Paris, École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; [SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]; Greenland; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-03661250; https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-03661250/document; https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-03661250/file/cp-18-249-2022.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-249-2022

International audience Abrupt climate changes are defined as sudden climate changes that took place over tens to hundreds of years or recurred at millennial timescales; they are thought to involve processes that are internal to the climate system. By contrast, astronomically forced climate changes involve processes that are external to the climate system and whose multi-millennial quasi-periodic variations are well known from astronomical theory. In this paper, we re-examine the main climate variations determined from the U1308 North Atlantic marine record, which yields a detailed calving history of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets over the past 3.2 Myr. The magnitude and periodicity of the ice-rafted debris (IRD) events observed in the U1308 record allow one to determine the timing of several abrupt climate changes, the larger ones corresponding to the massive iceberg discharges labeled Heinrich events (HEs). In parallel, abrupt warmings, called Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events, have been identified in the Greenland records of the last glaciation cycle. Combining the HE and DO observations, we study a complex mechanism giving rise to the observed millennial-scale variability that subsumes the abrupt climate changes of last 0.9 Myr. This process is characterized by the presence of Bond cycles, which group DO events and the associated Greenland stadials into a trend of increased cooling, with IRD events embedded into every stadial, the latest of these being an HE. These Bond cycles may have occurred during the last 0.9 Ma when Northern Hemisphere ice sheets reached their maximum extent and volume, thus becoming a major player in this time interval's climate dynamics. Since the waxing and waning of ice sheets during the Quaternary period are orbitally paced, we conclude that the abrupt climate changes observed during the Middle Pleistocene and Upper Pleistocene are therewith indirectly linked to the astronomical theory of climate.