Low-latitude glacial cooling in the Southern Hemisphere from amino-acid racemization in emu eggshells

Gifford H. Miller, John W. Magee and A. J. T. Jull
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Gifford H. Miller: University of Colorado
John W. Magee: Australian National University
A. J. T. Jull: University of Arizona

Nature, 1997, vol. 385, issue 6613, 241-244

Abstract: Abstract The record of natural climate variability over glacial-interglacial timescales provides a framework from which a better mechanistic understanding of the climate system may be derived. But this approach is limited by the number and distribution of well-dated and reliable palaeoenvironmental archives. Particularly vexing is the conflicting evidence for low-latitude cooling during the Last Glacial Maximum, and the apparent synchrony in glacial activity between the hemispheres despite out-of-phase insolation forcing1–4. Here we utilize the temperature-dependent amino acid racemization reaction in radiocarbon-dated emu eggshell fragments from the continental interior of Australia to reconstruct low-altitude subtropical temperatures for the past 45 kyr. Racemization rate-changes indicate that millennial-scale average air temperatures were at least 9 °C lower between 45 and 16 kyr BP than since 16 kyr BP. A temperature change of this magnitude, coupled with other low-latitude palaeotemperature records that indicate substantial cooling3,4, must reflect global processes, which, we speculate, involved glacial-age reduction in atmospheric water vapour content.

Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1038/385241a0

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