Gateway-driven weakening of ocean gyres leads to Southern Ocean cooling
Declining atmospheric CO(2) concentrations are considered the primary driver for the Cenozoic Greenhouse-Icehouse transition, ~34 million years ago. A role for tectonically opening Southern Ocean gateways, initiating the onset of a thermally isolating Antarctic Circumpolar Current, has been disputed...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:8578591 2023-05-15T13:59:55+02:00 Gateway-driven weakening of ocean gyres leads to Southern Ocean cooling Sauermilch, Isabel Whittaker, Joanne M. Klocker, Andreas Munday, David R. Hochmuth, Katharina Bijl, Peter K. LaCasce, Joseph H. 2021-11-09 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8578591/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34753912 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26658-1 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8578591/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34753912 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26658-1 © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Nat Commun Article Text 2021 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26658-1 2021-11-21T01:33:59Z Declining atmospheric CO(2) concentrations are considered the primary driver for the Cenozoic Greenhouse-Icehouse transition, ~34 million years ago. A role for tectonically opening Southern Ocean gateways, initiating the onset of a thermally isolating Antarctic Circumpolar Current, has been disputed as ocean models have not reproduced expected heat transport to the Antarctic coast. Here we use high-resolution ocean simulations with detailed paleobathymetry to demonstrate that tectonics did play a fundamental role in reorganising Southern Ocean circulation patterns and heat transport, consistent with available proxy data. When at least one gateway (Tasmanian or Drake) is shallow (300 m), gyres transport warm waters towards Antarctica. When the second gateway subsides below 300 m, these gyres weaken and cause a dramatic cooling (average of 2–4 °C, up to 5 °C) of Antarctic surface waters whilst the ACC remains weak. Our results demonstrate that tectonic changes are crucial for Southern Ocean climate change and should be carefully considered in constraining long-term climate sensitivity to CO(2). Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Southern Ocean PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic Nature Communications 12 1 |
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Article Sauermilch, Isabel Whittaker, Joanne M. Klocker, Andreas Munday, David R. Hochmuth, Katharina Bijl, Peter K. LaCasce, Joseph H. Gateway-driven weakening of ocean gyres leads to Southern Ocean cooling |
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Declining atmospheric CO(2) concentrations are considered the primary driver for the Cenozoic Greenhouse-Icehouse transition, ~34 million years ago. A role for tectonically opening Southern Ocean gateways, initiating the onset of a thermally isolating Antarctic Circumpolar Current, has been disputed as ocean models have not reproduced expected heat transport to the Antarctic coast. Here we use high-resolution ocean simulations with detailed paleobathymetry to demonstrate that tectonics did play a fundamental role in reorganising Southern Ocean circulation patterns and heat transport, consistent with available proxy data. When at least one gateway (Tasmanian or Drake) is shallow (300 m), gyres transport warm waters towards Antarctica. When the second gateway subsides below 300 m, these gyres weaken and cause a dramatic cooling (average of 2–4 °C, up to 5 °C) of Antarctic surface waters whilst the ACC remains weak. Our results demonstrate that tectonic changes are crucial for Southern Ocean climate change and should be carefully considered in constraining long-term climate sensitivity to CO(2). |
format |
Text |
author |
Sauermilch, Isabel Whittaker, Joanne M. Klocker, Andreas Munday, David R. Hochmuth, Katharina Bijl, Peter K. LaCasce, Joseph H. |
author_facet |
Sauermilch, Isabel Whittaker, Joanne M. Klocker, Andreas Munday, David R. Hochmuth, Katharina Bijl, Peter K. LaCasce, Joseph H. |
author_sort |
Sauermilch, Isabel |
title |
Gateway-driven weakening of ocean gyres leads to Southern Ocean cooling |
title_short |
Gateway-driven weakening of ocean gyres leads to Southern Ocean cooling |
title_full |
Gateway-driven weakening of ocean gyres leads to Southern Ocean cooling |
title_fullStr |
Gateway-driven weakening of ocean gyres leads to Southern Ocean cooling |
title_full_unstemmed |
Gateway-driven weakening of ocean gyres leads to Southern Ocean cooling |
title_sort |
gateway-driven weakening of ocean gyres leads to southern ocean cooling |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8578591/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34753912 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26658-1 |
geographic |
Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Southern Ocean |
op_source |
Nat Commun |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8578591/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34753912 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26658-1 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26658-1 |
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Nature Communications |
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12 |
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1766268844981092352 |