Tropically-driven climate shifts in southwestern Europe during MIS 19, a low eccentricity interglacial

• Published in: Earth and Planetary Science Letters
• Main Authors: Goni, Maria F. Sanchez, Rodrigues, Teresa, Hodell, D. A., Polanco-Martinez, J. M., Alonso-Garcia, Montserrat, Hernandez-Almeida, I., Desprat, S., Ferretti, P.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2016
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/9345; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2016.05.018

The relative roles of high- versus low-latitude forcing of millennial-scale climate variability are still not well understood. Here we present terrestrial-marine climate profiles from the southwestern Iberian margin, a region particularly affected by precession, that show millennial climate oscillations related to a nonlinear response to the Earth's precession cycle during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 19. MIS 19 has been considered the best analogue to our present interglacial from an astronomical point of view due to the reduced eccentricity centred at 785 ka. In our records, seven millennial-scale forest contractions punctuated MIS 19 superimposed to two orbitally-driven Mediterranean forest expansions. In contrast to our present interglacial, we evidence for the first time low latitude-driven 5000-yr cycles of drying and cooling in the western Mediterranean region, along with warmth in the subtropical gyre related to the fourth harmonic of precession. These cycles indicate repeated intensification of North Atlantic meridional moisture transport that along with decrease in boreal summer insolation triggered ice growth and may have contributed to the glacial inception, at similar to 774 ka. The freshwater fluxes during MIS 19ab amplified the cooling events in the North Atlantic promoting further cooling and leading to MIS 18 glaciation. The discrepancy between the dominant cyclicity observed during MIS 1, 2500-yr, and that of MIS 19, 5000-yr, challenges the similar duration of the Holocene and MIS 19c interglacials under natural boundary conditions. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.