Millennial-scale climatic variability between 340 000 and 270 000 years ago in SW Europe: evidence from a NW Iberian margin pollen sequence

• Main Authors: Desprat, S., Sánchez Goñi, M. F., Duprat, J., Cortijo, Elsa, Mcmanus, J. F.
• Other Authors: Environnements et Paléoenvironnements OCéaniques (EPOC), Observatoire aquitain des sciences de l'univers (OASU), Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux 1 (UB)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux 1 (UB)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Direction de Recherche Fondamentale (CEA) (DRF (CEA)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2008
• Subjects: [SDU.ENVI]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Continental interfaces; environment; [SDU.STU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00330743; https://hal.science/hal-00330743/document; https://hal.science/hal-00330743/file/cpd-4-375-2008.pdf

International audience We present a new high-resolution marine pollen record from NW Iberian margin sediments (core MD03-2697) covering the interval between 340 000 and 270 000 years ago a time period centred on Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 9 and characterised by particular baseline climate states. This study enables to document the vegetation changes in north-western Iberian Peninsula and therefore the terrestrial climatic variability at orbital and in particular at millennial scales during MIS 9, directly on a marine stratigraphy. Suborbital vegetation changes in NW Iberia in response to cool/cold events are detected throughout the studied interval even during MIS 9e ice volume minimum. However, they appears more frequent and of higher amplitude during the 30 000 years following the MIS 9e interglacial period and during the MIS 9a-8 transition which correspond to intervals of an intermediate to high ice volume and mainly periods of ice growth. Each suborbital cold event detected in NW Iberia has a counterpart in the southern Iberian margin SST record. High to moderate amplitude cold episodes detected on land and in the ocean appears related to changes in deep water circulation and likely to iceberg discharges at least during MIS 9d, the mid-MIS 9c cold event and MIS 9b. This work provides therefore additional evidence of a pervasive millennial-scale climatic variability in the North Atlantic borderlands throughout past climatic cycles of the Late Pleistocene, regardless of glacial state. However, ice volume might have an indirect influence on the amplitude of the millennial climatic changes in southern Europe.