Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of American Association for the Advancement of Science for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science 349 (2015): 706-710, doi:10.1126/science.aaa9554.
Description:
Changes in the formation of dense water in the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas (the ‘Arctic Mediterranean’, AM) likely contributed to the altered climate of the last glacial period. We examine past changes in AM circulation by reconstructing 14C ventilation ages of the deep Nordic Seas over the last 30,000 years. Our results show that the deep glacial AM was extremely poorly ventilated (ventilation ages of up to 10,000 years). Subsequent episodic overflow of aged water into the mid-depth North Atlantic occurred during deglaciation. Proxy data also suggest the deep glacial AM was ~2-3°C warmer than modern; deglacial mixing of the deep AM with the upper ocean thus potentially contributed to melting sea-ice and icebergs, as well as proximal terminal ice-sheet margins.
Description:
Funding was provided by a WHOI OCCI scholarship and OCCI grant 27071264 (DJRT); WHOI OCCI and NSF grants OIA-1124880 and OCE-1357121 (GG); the WHOI J. Lamar Worzel Assistant Scientist Fund, the Penzance Endowed Fund in Support of Assistant Scientists and NSF ANT-1246387 (WG); EU FP7 Marie Curie grant No. 298513 (MZ), grant DP140101393 (JY); and NERC grant NE/J008133/1 (SB).
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Preprint
Format:
application/pdf
