Insolation triggered abrupt cooling at the end of interglacials and implication for the future ...

• Main Authors: Yin, Qiuzhen, Wu, Zhipeng, Liang, Ming-Qiang, Berger, Andre
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences 2023
• Subjects: Labrador Sea; Nordic Sea; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.57757/iugg23-0980; https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5016509

<!--!introduction!--> Various paleoclimate records show that the end of interglacials of the late Pleistocene was marked by abrupt cooling events. Strong abrupt cooling occurring when climate was still in a warm interglacial condition is puzzling. Our transient climate simulations for the eleven interglacial (sub)stages of the past 800,000 years show that, when summer insolation in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) high latitudes decreases to a critical value (a threshold), it triggers a strong, abrupt weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and consequently an abrupt cooling in the NH. The mechanism involves sea ice-ocean feedbacks in the Northern Nordic Sea and the Labrador Sea (Yin et al., 2021, doi: 10.1126/science.abg1737). The insolation-induced abrupt cooling is accompanied by abrupt changes in precipitation, vegetation from low to high latitudes and in particular by abrupt snow accumulation in polar regions. The timing of the simulated abrupt events at the end of interglacials ... : The 28th IUGG General Assembly (IUGG2023) (Berlin 2023) ...