Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Air–sea temperature decoupling in western Europe during the last interglacial–glacial transition

Nature Geoscience volume 6, pages 837–841 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

This article has been updated

Abstract

A period of continental ice growth between about 80,000 and 70,000 years ago was controlled by a decrease in summer insolation, and was among the four largest ice expansions of the past 250,000 years1. The moisture source for this ice sheet expansion, known as the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5a/4 transition, has been proposed to be the warm subpolar and northern subtropical Atlantic Ocean1,2. However, the mechanism by which glaciers kept growing through three suborbital cooling events within this period, which were associated with iceberg discharge in the North Atlantic3,4 and cooling over Greenland5,6, is unclear. Here we reconstruct parallel records of sea surface and air temperatures from marine microfossil and pollen data, respectively, from two sediment cores collected within the northern subtropical gyre. The thermal gradient between the cold air and warmer sea increased throughout the MIS5a/4 transition, and was marked by three intervals of even more pronounced thermal gradients associated with the C20, C19 and C18’ cold events. We argue that the warm ocean surface along the western European margin provided a source of moisture that was transported, through northward-tracking storms, to feed ice sheets in colder Greenland, northern Europe and the Arctic.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Map with the locations of the cores discussed in the text.
Figure 2: Insolation and atmospheric CO2 concentration changes versus marine and terrestrial palaeoclimatic records from core MD04-2845 for the interval 85–50 ka.
Figure 3: Greenland temperature record compared with land–sea palaeoclimatic records from the three western European margin cores during the MIS5a/4 transition.

Similar content being viewed by others

Change history

  • 05 September 2013

    In the version of this Letter originally published online, the 'Data' section of the Methods was missing. This is now correct.

References

  1. Ruddiman, W. F. & McIntyre, A. Oceanic mechanisms for amplification of the 23,000-year ice-volume cycle. Science 212, 617–627 (1981).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Ruddiman, W. F. & McIntyre, A. Warmth of the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean during northern hemisphere ice-sheet growth. Science 204, 173–175 (1979).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. McManus, J. F. et al. High-resolution climate records from the North Atlantic during the last interglacial. Nature 371, 326–329 (1994).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Chapman, M. R. & Shackleton, N. J. Global ice-volume fluctuations, North Atlantic ice-rafted events, and deep-ocean circulation changes between 130 and 70 ka. Geology 27, 795–798 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Dansgaard, W. et al. in Climate Processes and Climate Sensitivity (eds Hansen, J. E. & Takahashi, T.) 288–298 (American Geophysical Union, 1984).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  6. Andersen, K. K. et al. The Greenland ice core chronology 2005, 15-42 ka. Part 1: Constructing the time scale. Quat. Sci. Rev. 25, 3246–3257 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Risebrobakken, B. et al. Inception of the Northern European ice sheet due to contrasting ocean and insolation forcing. Quat. Res. 67, 128–135 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Berger, A. Long-term variations of daily insolation and Quaternary climatic changes. J. Atmos. Sci. 35, 2362–2367 (1978).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Sánchez Goñi, M. F. et al. European climatic optimum and enhanced Greenland ice sheet melting during the last interglacial. Geology 40, 627–630 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Sanchez Goñi, M. F. et al. Contrasting impacts of Dansgaard-Oeschger events over a western European latitudinal transect modulated by orbital parameters. Quat. Sci. Rev. 27, 1136–1151 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Polunin, O. & Walters, M. A Guide to the Vegetation of Britain and Europe (Oxford Univ. Press, 1985).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Desprat, S. et al. in The Climate of Past Interglacials (eds Sirocko, F., Claussen, M., Sánchez Goñi, M. F. & Litt, T.) 375–386 (Elsevier, 2007).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  13. Woillard, G. M. Grande pile peat bog: A continuous Pollen record for the last 140.000 years. Quat. Res. 9, 1–21 (1978).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Gouveia, C., Trigo, R. M., DaCamara, C. C., Libonati, R. & Pereira, J. M. C. The North Atlantic Oscillation and European vegetation dynamics. Int. J. Clim. 28, 1835–1847 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Oort, A. H. & Vander Haar, T. H. On the observed annual cycle in the ocean–atmosphere heat balance over the northern hemisphere. J. Phys. Ocean. 6, 781–800 (1976).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Sánchez Goñi, M. F. & Sirocko, in The Climate of Past Interglacials (eds Claussen, F., Sánchez Goñi, M. & Litt, M. F.) 197–205 (Elsevier, 2007).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  17. Waelbroeck, C. et al. Sea-level and deep water temperature changes derived from benthic foraminifera isotopic records. Quat. Sci. Rev. 21, 295–305 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Fronval, T. & Jansen, E. Eemian and early Weichselian (140–60 ka) paleoceanography and paleoclimate in the Nordic seas with comparisons to Holocene conditions. Paleoceanography 12, 443–462 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Crucifix, M. & Loutre, M. F. Transient simulations over the last interglacial period (126-115 kyr BP): Feedback and forcing analysis. Clim. Dyn. 19, 417–433 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Chiang, J. C. H., Cheng, W. & Bitz, C. M. Fast teleconnections to the tropical Atlantic sector from Atlantic thermohaline adjustment. Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L07704 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Binford, L. R. Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for Theory Building Using Ethnographic and Environmental Data Sets (Univ. California Press, 2001).

    Google Scholar 

  22. Kucera, M., Rosell-Melé, A., Schneider, R., Waelbroeck, C. & Weinelt, M. Multiproxy approach for the reconstruction of the glacial ocean surface (MARGO). Quat. Sci. Rev. 24, 813–819 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Urbanek, S. & Iacus, S. M. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2007).

    Google Scholar 

  24. Oksanen, J., Kindt, R. & Legendre, P. et al. Vegan: Community Ecology Package. R package version 1. 8-8 (2007).

  25. Pailler, D. & Bard, E. High frequency palaeoceanographic changes during the past 140,000 yr recorded by the organic matter in sediments of the Iberian margin. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 2799, 1–22 (2002).

    Google Scholar 

  26. Rosell-Melé, A. et al. Precision of the current methods to measure the alkenone proxy U37K′ and absolute alkenone abundance in sediments: Results of an interlaboratory comparison study. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 2, 1046 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Prahl, F. G., Muehlhausen, L. A. & Zahnle, D. L. Further evaluation of long-chain alkenones as indicators of paleoceanographic conditions. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 52, 2303–2310 (1988).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Ahn, J. & Brook, E. J. Atmospheric CO2 and climate on millennial time scales during the last glacial period. Science 322, 83–85 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Landais, A. et al. A continuous record of temperature evolution over a whole sequence of Dansgaard-Oeschger during Marine Isotopic Stage 4 (76 to 62 kyr BP). Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L22211 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Wolff, E. W., Chappellaz, J., Blunier, T., Rasmussen, S. O. & Svensson, A. C. Millennial-scale variability during the last glacial: The ice core record. Quat. Sci. Rev. 29, 2828–2838 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the coring and logistic teams onboard the R/V Marion Dufresne during the IMAGES I, GINNA and ALIENOR oceanographic cruises. The work of M.F.S.G. and F.d. was supported by the ERC Advanced Grant TRACSYMBOLS no. 249587. IPEV, INSU-ECLIPSE and ANR-PICC French programmes provided financial support to UMR-CNRS 5805 EPOC as well as the RESOLuTION project funded by the ESF programme EUROCORES. A.L. received support from the ANR Citronnier. E.B. acknowledges financial support from the European Commission (Project Past4Future) and the Collège de France. We thank D. Urrego for assisting us with the statistical analysis, E. Salgueiro for reconstructing Iberian margin SSTs from core MD95-2042 using the Iberian margin database, and F. Rostek for measuring alkenones at CEREGE. We are grateful to S. Desprat, D. Urrego, M-N. Woillez, A-L. Daniau and W. Banks for constructive discussions, M-H. Castera, M. Georget and O. Ther for their technical assistance, and V. Hanquiez for drawing Fig. 1.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, UMR-CNRS 5805 EPOC, Université Bordeaux 1, 33405 Talence, Avenue des Facultés, France

    María Fernanda Sánchez Goñi

  2. Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, IRD, Collège de France, UM CEREGE, Technopole de l’Arbois, BP80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 04, France

    Edouard Bard

  3. IPSL / Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement CEA CNRS UVSQ UMR 8212, Bât. 712 / Orme des merisiers 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France

    Amaelle Landais

  4. Université Bordeaux 1, UMR-CNRS 5805 EPOC, Avenue des Facultés, 33405 Talence, France

    Linda Rossignol

  5. CNRS UMR 5199 PACEA-PPP, Université Bordeaux 1, Avenue des Facultés, F-33405 Talence, France

    Francesco d’Errico

  6. Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, 5020 Bergen, Norway

    Francesco d’Errico

Authors
  1. María Fernanda Sánchez Goñi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Edouard Bard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Amaelle Landais
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Linda Rossignol
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Francesco d’Errico
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

M.F.S.G. designed the study, performed pollen analysis, interpreted the data and wrote the manuscript. E.B. provided the alkenone data and discussed data and interpretations. A.L. discussed the data. L.R. performed the foraminifera analysis and reconstructed sea surface temperatures. F.d. contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to María Fernanda Sánchez Goñi.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (PDF 1274 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sánchez Goñi, M., Bard, E., Landais, A. et al. Air–sea temperature decoupling in western Europe during the last interglacial–glacial transition. Nature Geosci 6, 837–841 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1924

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1924

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene