Evidence for obliquity forcing of glacial termination II

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Drysdale, R.N., Hellstrom, J.C., Zanchetta, G., Fallick, A.E., Sanchez Goni, M.F., Couchoud, I., McDonald, J., Maas, R., Lohmann, G., Isola, I.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2009
• Subjects: QE Geology; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/7674/; https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1170371

Variations in the intensity of high-latitude Northern Hemisphere summer insolation, driven largely by precession of the equinoxes, are widely thought to control the timing of Late Pleistocene glacial terminations. However, recently it has been suggested that changes in Earth's obliquity may be a more important mechanism. We present a new speleothem-based North Atlantic marine chronology which shows that the penultimate glacial termination (Termination II) commenced 141,000 ± 2,500 years before present, too early to be explained by Northern Hemisphere summer insolation but consistent with changes in Earth's obliquity. Our record reveals that Terminations I and II are separated by three obliquity cycles and that they started at near-identical obliquity phases.