Radiocarbon dating, oxygen isotopes, and sea-level reconstruction of sediment core GeoB5844-2 from the northern end of the Red Sea

• Main Authors: Arz, Helge Wolfgang, Lamy, Frank, Ganopolski, Andrey, Nowaczyk, Norbert R, Pätzold, Jürgen
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2007
• Subjects: Center for Marine Environmental Sciences; GeoB5844-2; Gravity corer (Kiel type); M44/3; MARUM; Meteor (1986); Northern Red Sea; SL; Antarctic; Greenland; Indian; Antarc*; Greenland ice core; ice core
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.797464; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.797464

Based on a radiocarbon and paleomagnetically dated sediment record from the northern Red Sea and the exceptional sensitivity of the regional changes in the oxygen isotope composition of sea water to the sea-level-dependent water exchange with the Indian Ocean, we provide a new global sea-level reconstruction spanning the last glacial period. The sea-level record has been extracted from the temperature-corrected benthic stable oxygen isotopes using coral-based sea-level data as constraints for the sea-level/oxygen isotope relationship. Although, the general features of this millennial-scale sea-level records have strong similarities to the rather symmetric and gradual Southern Hemisphere climate patterns, we observe, in constrast to previous findings, pronounced sea level rises of up to 25 m to generally correspond with Northern Hemisphere warmings as recorded in Greenland ice-core interstadial intervals whereas sea-level lowstands mostly occur during cold phases. Corroborated by CLIMBER-2 model results, the close connection of millennial-scale sea-level changes to Northern Hemisphere temperature variations indicates a primary climatic control on the mass balance of the major Northern Hemisphere ice sheets and does not require a considerable Antarctic contribution.