Arctic and Antarctic forcing of ocean interior warming during the last deglaciation

Subsurface water masses formed at high latitudes impact the latitudinal distribution of heat in the ocean. Yet uncertainty surrounding the timing of low-latitude warming during the last deglaciation (18–10 ka) means that controls on sub-surface temperature rise remain unclear. Here we present seawat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific Reports
Main Authors: Stewart, Joseph A., Robinson, Laura F., Rae, James W. B., Burke, Andrea, Chen, Tianyu, Li, Tao, de Carvalho Ferreira, Maria Luiza, Fornari, Daniel J.
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Subjects:
Article
Antarctic
Arctic
Pacific
Southern Ocean
Antarc*
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10725493/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38104174
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-49435-0
Description
Summary:Subsurface water masses formed at high latitudes impact the latitudinal distribution of heat in the ocean. Yet uncertainty surrounding the timing of low-latitude warming during the last deglaciation (18–10 ka) means that controls on sub-surface temperature rise remain unclear. Here we present seawater temperature records on a precise common age-scale from East Equatorial Pacific (EEP), Equatorial Atlantic, and Southern Ocean intermediate waters using new Li/Mg records from cold water corals. We find coeval warming in the tropical EEP and Atlantic during Heinrich Stadial 1 (+ 6 °C) that closely resemble warming recorded in Antarctic ice cores, with more modest warming of the Southern Ocean (+ 3 °C). The magnitude and depth of low-latitude ocean warming implies that downward accumulation of heat following Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) slowdown played a key role in heating the ocean interior, with heat advection from southern-sourced intermediate waters playing an additional role.

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