Millennial-scale influence of southern intermediate component water into the North-east Atlantic during the last 40kyr

• Main Authors: Dubois-Dauphin, Q., Colin, C., Bonneau, L., Montero-Serrano, J.-C., Blamart, D., Van Rooij, D., Franck, N.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarc*; North Atlantic; North East Atlantic
• Online Access: https://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/264009.pdf

The advection of Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) is important for the distribution of heat, salt, nutrients and carbon to the North Atlantic. However little is known about the links between intermediate water circulation and abrupt climate events such as Heinrich events. Here, we have investigated eNd of seawater and cold-water corals located to the Alboran Sea and to the SE of the Gulf of Cadiz to constrain the present day seawater eNd and to reconstruct the past water mass mixing during the last 37kyr. The coral eNd values range from -8 to -10.4, most likely indicating changes of the dominant water mass provenance. Glacial cold-water corals (from 19 to 37kyr) are characterized by more radiogenic eNd values (> -9.5) compared to the ones from the Holocene demonstrating a decreasing contribution of MOW and/or AAIW in the SE Gulf of Cadiz during climate warming. Strikingly, Heinrich events H2 and H3 reveal even more radiogenic eNd values (~-8). In addition, deep-sea corals from the Alboran Sea indicate that eNd of the MOW do not change significantly trough time. These results points to significant advance of southern component water at 500m depth in the eastern temperate Atlantic.