Ocean lead at the termination of the Younger Dryas cold spell

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Pearce, Christof, Seidenkrantz, Marit-Solveig A., Kuijpers, Antoon, Massé, Guillaume, Reynisson, Njáll F., Kristiansen, Søren M.
• Other Authors: Aarhus University Aarhus, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), Paléoclimats, proxies, processus (PALEOPROXUS), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2013
• Subjects: [PHYS.PHYS.PHYS-GEO-PH]Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; [SDU.STU.GP]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; North Atlantic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00873402; https://hal.science/hal-00873402/document; https://hal.science/hal-00873402/file/ncomms2686.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1038/NCOMMS2686

International audience The Younger Dryas (YD) cold interval is one of the most abrupt climate events of Earth's recent history. The origin of this rapid, severe cooling episode is still widely debated, but it was probably triggered by a large freshwater influx to the North Atlantic resulting in disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. The YD termination, despite having been even more abrupt than the onset has, however, received significantly less attention. Here using multi-proxy data from a high-resolution marine sediment record, we present evidence for a gradual decrease of the Labrador Current influence, northward migration of the Gulf Stream oceanic front and a rapid decline of sea-ice cover at the YD termination. Our data indicate a stepwise sequence of events with changes in ocean circulation clearly preceding those in atmospheric conditions, in contrast to the hitherto commonly assumed single-event rapid climatic shift at the YD-Holocene transition.