Persistent export of 231Pa from the deep central Arctic Ocean over the past 35,000 years.

The Arctic Ocean has an important role in Earth's climate, both through surface processes such as sea-ice formation and transport, and through the production and export of waters at depth that contribute to the global thermohaline circulation. Deciphering the deep Arctic Ocean's palaeo-oceanographic history is a crucial part of understanding its role in climatic change. Here we show that sedimentary ratios of the radionuclides thorium-230 ((230)Th) and protactinium-231 ((231)Pa), which are produced in sea water and removed by particle scavenging on timescales of decades to centuries, respectively, record consistent evidence for the export of (231)Pa from the deep Arctic and may indicate continuous deep-water exchange between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans throughout the past 35,000 years. Seven well-dated box-core records provide a comprehensive overview of (231)Pa and (230)Th burial in Arctic sediments during glacial, deglacial and interglacial conditions. Sedimentary (231)Pa/(230)Th ratios decrease nearly linearly with increasing water depth above the core sites, indicating efficient particle scavenging in the upper water column and greater influence of removal by lateral transport at depth. Although the measured (230)Th burial is in balance with its production in Arctic sea water, integrated depth profiles for all time intervals reveal a deficit in (231)Pa burial that can be balanced only by lateral export in the water column. Because no enhanced sink for (231)Pa has yet been found in the Arctic, our records suggest that deep-water exchange through the Fram strait may export (231)Pa. Such export may have continued for the past 35,000 years, suggesting a century-scale replacement time for deep waters in the Arctic Ocean since the most recent glaciation and a persistent contribution of Arctic waters to the global ocean circulation.

Global climate evolution during the last deglaciation.

Deciphering the evolution of global climate from the end of the Last Glacial Maximum approximately 19 ka to the early Holocene 11 ka presents an outstanding opportunity for understanding the transient response of Earth's climate system to external and internal forcings. During this interval of global warming, the decay of ice sheets caused global mean sea level to rise by approximately 80 m; terrestrial and marine ecosystems experienced large disturbances and range shifts; perturbations to the carbon cycle resulted in a net release of the greenhouse gases CO(2) and CH(4) to the atmosphere; and changes in atmosphere and ocean circulation affected the global distribution and fluxes of water and heat. Here we summarize a major effort by the paleoclimate research community to characterize these changes through the development of well-dated, high-resolution records of the deep and intermediate ocean as well as surface climate. Our synthesis indicates that the superposition of two modes explains much of the variability in regional and global climate during the last deglaciation, with a strong association between the first mode and variations in greenhouse gases, and between the second mode and variations in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.

Atlantic overturning responses to Late Pleistocene climate forcings.

The factors driving glacial changes in ocean overturning circulation are not well understood. On the basis of a comparison of 20 climate variables over the past four glacial cycles, the SPECMAP project proposed that summer insolation at high northern latitudes (that is, Milankovitch forcing) drives the same sequence of ocean circulation and other climate responses over 100-kyr eccentricity cycles, 41-kyr obliquity cycles and 23-kyr precession cycles. SPECMAP analysed the circulation response at only a few sites in the Atlantic Ocean, however, and the phase of circulation response has been shown to vary by site and orbital band. Here we test the SPECMAP hypothesis by measuring the phase of orbital responses in benthic delta(13)C (a proxy indicator of ocean nutrient content) at 24 sites throughout the Atlantic over the past 425 kyr. On the basis of delta(13)C responses at 3,000-4,010 m water depth, we find that maxima in Milankovitch forcing are associated with greater mid-depth overturning in the obliquity band but less overturning in the precession band. This suggests that Atlantic overturning is strongly sensitive to factors beyond ice volume and summer insolation at high northern latitudes. A better understanding of these processes could lead to improvements in model estimates of overturning rates, which range from a 40 per cent increase to a 40 per cent decrease at the Last Glacial Maximum and a 10-50 per cent decrease over the next 140 yr in response to projected increases in atmospheric CO(2) (ref. 4).

Gulf Stream density structure and transport during the past millennium.

The Gulf Stream transports approximately 31 Sv (1 Sv = 10(6) m(3) s(-1)) of water and 1.3 x 10(15) W of heat into the North Atlantic ocean. The possibility of abrupt changes in Gulf Stream heat transport is one of the key uncertainties in predictions of climate change for the coming centuries. Given the limited length of the instrumental record, our knowledge of Gulf Stream behaviour on long timescales must rely heavily on information from geologic archives. Here we use foraminifera from a suite of high-resolution sediment cores in the Florida Straits to show that the cross-current density gradient and vertical current shear of the Gulf Stream were systematically lower during the Little Ice Age (ad approximately 1200 to 1850). We also estimate that Little Ice Age volume transport was ten per cent weaker than today's. The timing of reduced flow is consistent with temperature minima in several palaeoclimate records, implying that diminished oceanic heat transport may have contributed to Little Ice Age cooling in the North Atlantic. The interval of low flow also coincides with anomalously high Gulf Stream surface salinity, suggesting a tight linkage between the Atlantic Ocean circulation and hydrologic cycle during the past millennium.

Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during the Last Glacial Maximum.

The circulation of the deep Atlantic Ocean during the height of the last ice age appears to have been quite different from today. We review observations implying that Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during the Last Glacial Maximum was neither extremely sluggish nor an enhanced version of present-day circulation. The distribution of the decay products of uranium in sediments is consistent with a residence time for deep waters in the Atlantic only slightly greater than today. However, evidence from multiple water-mass tracers supports a different distribution of deep-water properties, including density, which is dynamically linked to circulation.