Southern Ocean convection amplified past Antarctic warming and atmospheric CO2 rise during Heinrich Stadial 4

• Published in: Communications Earth & Environment
• Main Authors: Skinner, Luke, Menviel, Laurie, Broadfield, Lauren, Gottschalk, Julia, Greaves, Mervyn
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerNature 2020
• Subjects: 01 - Climate Change and Earth-Ocean Atmosphere Systems; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; Antarc*; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/4940/; http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/4940/1/s43247-020-00024-3.pdf; http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/4940/2/43247_2020_24_MOESM1_ESM.pdf; http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/4940/3/43247_2020_24_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx; http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/4940/4/43247_2020_24_MOESM3_ESM.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00024-3

The record of past climate highlights recurrent and intense millennial anomalies, characterised by a distinct pattern of inter-polar temperature change, termed the ‘thermal bipolar seesaw’, which is widely believed to arise from rapid changes in the Atlantic overturning circulation. By forcing a suppression of North Atlantic convection, models have been able to reproduce many of the general features of the thermal bipolar seesaw; however, they typically fail to capture the full magnitude of temperature change reconstructed using polar ice cores from both hemispheres. Here we use deep-water temperature reconstructions, combined with parallel oxygenation and radiocarbon ventilation records, to demonstrate the occurrence of enhanced deep convection in the Southern Ocean across the particularly intense millennial climate anomaly, Heinrich Stadial 4. Our results underline the important role of Southern Ocean convection as a potential amplifier of Antarctic warming, and atmospheric CO2 rise, that is responsive to triggers originating in the North Atlantic.