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:

Influence of the tropics and southern westerlies on glacial interhemispheric asymmetry

Nature Geoscience volume 5, pages 266–269 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

During the last glacial period and deglaciation, climate shifts in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres occurred asynchronously, cooling in one coinciding with warming in the other1,2,3,4,5,6. This asymmetry has been attributed to the phenomenon known as the bipolar seesaw1, which, in turn, has been linked to latitudinal shifts of the southern westerly wind belt2. The southern westerlies substantially determine the location of the oceanic Subtropical Front. A more poleward location of the Subtropical Front allows the Leeuwin Current, which carries warm tropical water along the west coast of Australia to extend at times as far as Tasmania. Here we use multiple proxies obtained from a sediment core off the southern coast of Australia to reconstruct sea-surface temperature and other environmental conditions, both marine and terrestrial, from 33,000 to 10,000 years ago. We find millennial-scale warm phases south of Australia and attribute them to the presence of the Leeuwin Current. The warm phases are synchronous with cool Northern Hemisphere Heinrich Stadials7 and coincide with warm intervals south of Africa and in the western tropical Atlantic Ocean6. We therefore suggest that the poleward displacement of the Subtropical Front during these intervals extended across the Indian Ocean, thus promoting the leakage of warm Indian Ocean water via the Agulhas Current6 into the Atlantic Ocean.

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 showing the location of core MD03-2611 below the pathway of the Leeuwin Current (LC), an offshoot of the Indonesian Throughflow joined by waters from the Central Indian Gyre (via the Eastern Gyral (EGC)).
Figure 2: The 33–10 kyr record of core MD03-2611.
Figure 3: Comparison of SST reconstructions around Australia for the Last Glacial Maximum with today’s SST, showing also the position of the core MD03-2611.
Figure 4: Comparison of records spanning 33–10 kyr evidencing the interhemispheric asymmetry.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Blunier, T. & Brook, E. J. Timing of millennial-scale climate change in Antarctica and Greenland during the last glacial period. Science 291, 109–112 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Denton, G. H. et al. The last glacial termination. Science 328, 1652–1656 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Blunier, T. et al. Asynchrony of Antarctic and Greenland climate change during the last glacial period. Nature 394, 739–743 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Wang, X. et al. Interhemispheric anti-phasing of rainfall during the last glacial period. Quat. Sci. Rev 25, 3391–3403 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Broecker, W. S. Paleocean circulation during the last deglaciation: A bipolar seesaw? Paleoceanography 13, 116–121 (1998).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Barker, S. et al. Interhemispheric Atlantic seesaw response during the last deglaciation. Nature 457, 1097–1103 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Zarriess, M. et al. Bipolar seesaw in the northeastern tropical Atlantic during Heinrich stadials. Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L04706 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Beal, L. M., De Ruijter, W. P. M., Biastock, A., Zahn, R. & SCOR/WCRP/IAPSO working group 136, On the role of the Agulhas system in oceanic circulation and climate. Nature 472, 429–436 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Hemming, S. R. Heinrich events: Massive Late Pleistocene detritus layers of the North Atlantic and their global impact. Rev. Geophys. 42, RG1005 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Zahn, R. Beyond the CO2 connection. Nature 460, 335–336 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Biastoch, A., Böning, C. W., Schwarzkopf, F. U. & Lutjeharms, J. R. E. Increase in Agulhas leakage due to poleward shift of Southern Hemisphere westerlies. Nature 462, 495–499 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Bard, E. & Rickaby, R. E. M. Migration of the subtropical front as a modulator of glacial climate. Nature 460, 380–384 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Belkin, I. & Gordon, A. Southern Ocean fronts from the Greenwich meridian to Tasmania. J. Geophys. Res. 101, 3675–3696 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Peeters, F. J. C. et al. Vigorous exchange between the Indian and Atlantic oceans at the end of the past five glacial periods. Nature 430, 661–665 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Barrows, T. T. & Juggins, S. Sea-surface temperatures around the Australian margin and Indian Ocean during the Last Glacial Maximum. Quat. Sci. Rev. 24, 1017–1047 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Sikes, E. L. et al. Southern Ocean seasonal temperature and Subtropical Front movement on the South Tasman Rise in the late Quaternary. Paleoceanography 24, PA2201 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Levi, C. et al. Low-latitude hydrological cycle and rapid climate changes during the last deglaciation. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 8, Q05N12 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Calvo, E., Pelejero, C., De Deckker, P. & Logan, G. A. Antarctic deglacial pattern in a 30 kyr record of sea surface temperature offshore South Australia. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L13707 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Rühlemann, C., Mulitza, S., Müller, P. J., Wefer, G. & Zahn, R. Warming of the tropical Atlantic Ocean and slowdown of thermohaline circulation during the last deglaciation. Nature 402, 511–514 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Lee, S-Y., Chiang, J. C. H., Matsumoto, K. & Tokos, K. S. Southern Ocean wind response to North Atlantic cooling and the rise in atmospheric CO2: Modelling perspective and paleoceanographic implications. Paleoceanography 26, PA1214 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. EPICA community members, Eight glacial cycles from an Antarctic ice core. Nature 429, 623–628 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. EPICA community members, One-to-one coupling of glacial climate variability in Greenland and Antarctica. Nature 444, 195–198 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Stott, L., Timmermann, A. & Thunell, R. Southern hemisphere and deep-sea warming led deglacial atmospheric CO2 rise and tropical warming. Science 318, 435–438 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. De Deckker, P. & Yokoyama, Y. Micropalaeontological evidence for Late Quaternary sea-level changes in Bonaparte Gulf, Australia. Glob. Planet. Change 66, 85–92 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. De Deckker, P., Tapper, N. J. & van der Kaars, S. The status of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pooland adjacent land at the Last Glacial Maximum. Glob. Planet. Change 35, 25–35 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Toggweiler, J. R. Shifting westerlies. Science 323, 1434–1435 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Grootes, P. M., Stuiver, M., White, J. W. C., Johnsen, S. & Jouzel, J. Comparison of oxygen isotope records from the GISP2 and GRIP Greenland ice cores. Nature 366, 552–554 (1993).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to T. T. Barrows who provided much valuable feedback to several drafts of the manuscripts and also for carrying out the SST reconstructions using his AUSMAT-F4 database, and to S. J. Fallon who performed some of the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C analyses. We also thank H. Arz and T. Dokken for fruitful discussions. P.D.D. thanks the Australian National Ocean Office for funding the cruise in March 2003, Yvon Balut and the Institut Polaire Français (IPEV) for logistical support and coring facilities, the Australian Research Council for grant DP0344932, and Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) grant 05/36 for some of the AMS dating. The Norwegian Research Council supported the Bjerknes Centre and AMS 14C dates and stable isotope analyses. J. Shelley is thanked for sample preparation and picking some of the foraminifera and R. Soraas for expert help and calibration with the mass spectrometer data.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT0200, Australia

    Patrick De Deckker

  2. Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research, Seestrasse 15, 18119 Rostock, Germany

    Matthias Moros & Kerstin Perner

  3. Uni Research and Department of Earth Science, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen, Allégaten 55, 5007 Bergen, Norway

    Eystein Jansen

Authors
  1. Patrick De Deckker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Matthias Moros
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Kerstin Perner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Eystein Jansen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

P.D.D. and M.M. equally contributed to the writing of the manuscript with additional support from the other two authors. P.D.D. collected the core and did some preliminary work on it, and this was followed by significant data contributions by M.M. (isotopes, XRF scanning, XRD analyses) and K.P. (foraminifer faunal counts). E.J. contributed to the ideas and writing of the manuscript, and financially supported part of the project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Patrick De Deckker or Matthias Moros.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

De Deckker, P., Moros, M., Perner, K. et al. Influence of the tropics and southern westerlies on glacial interhemispheric asymmetry. Nature Geosci 5, 266–269 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1431

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1431

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

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