Younger Dryas deglaciation of Scotland driven by warming summers

Resolving the full manifestation of past abrupt climate change is key to understanding the processes driving and propagating these events. As a principal component of global heat transport, the North Atlantic Ocean also is susceptible to rapid disruptions of meridional overturning circulation and th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Main Authors: Bromley, Gordon R. M., Putnam, Aaron E., Rademaker, Kurt M., Lowell, Thomas V., Schaefer, Joerg M., Hall, Brenda, Winckler, Gisela, Birkel, Sean D., Borns, Harold W.
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: National Academy of Sciences 2014
Subjects:
Physical Sciences
North Atlantic
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4035952
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24733909
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1321122111
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Summary:Resolving the full manifestation of past abrupt climate change is key to understanding the processes driving and propagating these events. As a principal component of global heat transport, the North Atlantic Ocean also is susceptible to rapid disruptions of meridional overturning circulation and thus widely invoked as a cause of abrupt climate variability in the Northern Hemisphere. We assess the impact of one such North Atlantic cold event—the Younger Dryas Stadial—on an adjacent ice mass and show that, rather than instigating a return to glacial conditions, this abrupt climate event was characterized by deglaciation. We suggest this pattern indicates summertime warming during the Younger Dryas, potentially as a function of enhanced seasonality in the North Atlantic.

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