Southern Ocean temperature records and ice-sheet models demonstrate rapid Antarctic ice sheet retreat under low atmospheric CO 2 during Marine Isotope Stage 31

• Published in: Quaternary Science Reviews
• Main Authors: Beltran, Catherine, Golledge, Nicholas R., Ohneiser, Christian, Kowalewski, Douglas E., Sicre, Marie-Alexandrine, Hageman, Kimberly J., Smith, Robert, Wilson, Gary S., Mainié, François
• Other Authors: University of Otago Dunedin, Nouvelle-Zélande, Victoria University of Wellington, Worcester State University Worcester, Variabilité de l'Océan et de la Glace de mer (VOG), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-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)-École polytechnique (X), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité)-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)-École polytechnique (X), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), LEFE/IMAGO 2013
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2020
• Subjects: Super-interglacial; Pleistocene; Paleoceanography; Paleoclimate modeling; Antarctica; Southern Ocean; Organic Geochemistry; [SDU.STU.CL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Climatology; [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; [SDU.STU.GL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Glaciology; [SDU.STU.GC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Geochemistry; Antarc*; Antarctic; Ice Sheet; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03414902; https://hal.science/hal-03414902/document; https://hal.science/hal-03414902/file/Beltran%20et%20al-pre-print.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.106069

International audience Over the last 5 million years, the Earth’s climate has oscillated between warm (interglacial) and cold (glacial) states. Some particularly warm interglacial periods (i.e. ‘super-interglacials’) occurred under low atmospheric CO 2 and may have featured extensive Antarctic ice sheet collapse. Here we focus on an extreme super-interglacial known as Marine Isotope Stage 31 (MIS31), between 1.085 and 1.055 million years ago and is the subject of intense discussion. We reconstructed the first Southern Ocean and Antarctic margin sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from organic biomarkers and used them to constrain numerical ice sheet-shelf simulations. Our SSTs indicate that the ocean was on average 5 °C (±1.2 °C) warmer in summer than today between 50 °S and the Antarctic ice margin. Our most conservative ice sheet simulation indicates a complete collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) with additional deflation of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. We suggest the WAIS retreated because of anomalously high Southern Hemisphere insolation coupled with the intrusion of Circumpolar Deep Water onto the continental shelf under poleward-intensified winds leading to a shorter sea ice season and ocean warming at the continental margin. In this scenario, the extreme warming we observed likely reflects the extensively modified oceanic and hydrologic system following ice sheet collapse. Our work highlights the sensitivity of the Antarctic ice sheets to minor oceanic perturbations that could also be at play for future changes