Intensified deep Pacific inflow and ventilation in Pleistocene glacial times

Ian R. Hall (), I. Nicholas McCave, Nicholas J. Shackleton, Graham P. Weedon and Sara E. Harris
Additional contact information
Ian R. Hall: Cardiff University
I. Nicholas McCave: University of Cambridge
Nicholas J. Shackleton: University of Cambridge
Graham P. Weedon: Geography and Geology, University of Luton
Sara E. Harris: Sea Education Association

Nature, 2001, vol. 412, issue 6849, 809-812

Abstract: Abstract The production of cold, deep waters in the Southern Ocean is an important factor in the Earth's heat budget1. The supply of deep water to the Pacific Ocean is presently dominated by a single source, the deep western boundary current east of New Zealand. Here we use sediment records deposited under the influence of this deep western boundary current to reconstruct deep-water properties and speed changes during the Pleistocene epoch. In physical and isotope proxies we find evidence for intensified deep Pacific Ocean inflow and ventilation during the glacial periods of the past 1.2 million years. The changes in throughflow may be directly related to an increased production of Antarctic Bottom Water during glacial times. Possible causes for such an increased bottom-water production include increasing wind strengths in the Southern Ocean or an increase in annual sea-ice formation, leaving dense water after brine rejection and thereby enhancing deep convection. We infer also that the global thermohaline circulation was perturbed significantly during the mid-Pleistocene climate transition between 0.86 and 0.45 million years ago.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35090552 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:412:y:2001:i:6849:d:10.1038_35090552

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35090552

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().