Palaeoceanography articles within Nature Geoscience

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ocean sediment records suggest that the modern Antarctic Circumpolar Current did not exist before the late Miocene cooling, indicating its origin is linked to the expansion of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

    • Dimitris Evangelinos
    • , Johan Etourneau
    •  & Carlota Escutia

  • News & Views |

    Marine microfossil assemblages refine sea surface temperature patterns and yield insights into discrepancies between paleoclimate models of the last ice age and observations.

    • Marci M. Robinson

  • News & Views |

    A geochemical study of an ancient mass-extinction event shows that only moderate expansion of oxygen-deficient waters along continental margins is needed to decimate marine biodiversity. This finding provides a stark warning of the possible consequences of human-driven ocean deoxygenation on life in Earth’s shallow oceans.

    • Brian Kendall

  • Article |

    While generally tracking Northern Hemisphere summer insolation, the Earth gained energy during cold millennial scale events throughout the past 150,000 years, according to an analysis of benthic oxygen isotopes.

    • Sarah Shackleton
    • , Alan Seltzer
    •  & Lorraine E. Lisiecki

  • Research Briefing |

    Analysis of the microfossil content of sediment cores from areas where thick Arctic sea ice persists today reveals that a subpolar species associated with Atlantic water expanded deep into the Arctic Ocean during the Last Interglacial. This finding implies that summers in the Arctic were likely sea-ice-free during this period.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The warm Last Interglacial led to a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean and a transformation to Atlantic conditions, according to planktic foraminifera records from central Arctic Ocean sediment cores.

    • Flor Vermassen
    • , Matt O’Regan
    •  & Helen K. Coxall

  • News & Views |

    The chemical weathering of silicate rocks plays a central role in stabilizing our climate through CO2 drawdown. Li isotopic evidence from a prolonged Eocene warming event suggests clay formation may disrupt this feedback on intermediate timescales.

    • Michael J. Henehan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The long duration of the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum, compared with other transient Eocene warming events, can be explained by an increase in clays forming from the weathering of silicate minerals, according to lithium isotope records of marine carbonates.

    • Alexander J. Krause
    • , Appy Sluijs
    •  & Philip A. E. Pogge von Strandmann

  • Editorial |

    Ecosystems have long been shaped by phosphorus limitation. We need to better understand how natural and human-caused shifts in the phosphorus cycle disrupt the Earth system.

  • News & Views |

    Deep overturning circulation in the North Atlantic strongly influences the global climate system. Combined proxy record compilations and modelling refine our understanding of the behaviour of this circulation over the last 20,000 years.

    • K. Halimeda Kilbourne

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation was shallow and weak during the Last Glacial Maximum, and water masses took time to adjust to circulation shifts during the Last Deglaciation, according to a reassessment of proxy records and model simulations.

    • Frerk Pöppelmeier
    • , Aurich Jeltsch-Thömmes
    •  & Thomas F. Stocker

  • Article |

    Volcanic activity led to ocean acidification at the onset of Oceanic Anoxic Event 2, which then persisted for 600,000 years due to biogeochemical feedbacks, according to marine osmium isotope and carbonate sedimentation records offshore from southwest Australia.

    • Matthew M. Jones
    • , Bradley B. Sageman
    •  & Richard W. Hobbs

  • Article |

    East Antarctic surface temperature co-varied with local insolation in the Early Pleistocene, leading to the cancellation of global orbital ice sheet forcing from precession, according to temperature proxies and insolation-related gas ratios in ice cores.

    • Yuzhen Yan
    • , Andrei V. Kurbatov
    •  & John A. Higgins

  • Editorial |

    Marine phytoplankton both follow and actively influence the environment they inhabit. Unpacking the complex ecological and biogeochemical roles of these tiny organisms can help reveal the workings of the Earth system.

  • Article |

    The advance and retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were primarily paced by 41,000-year-long obliquity cycles, not longer eccentricity cycles, until 400,000 years ago, according to sedimentological and palaeomagnetic records from the Ross Embayment.

    • Christian Ohneiser
    • , Christina L. Hulbe
    •  & Rachel A. Worthington

  • Article |

    Deep-water formation in the Nordic Seas that helps to drive the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation was vigorous during the last glacial maximum, much as it is today, and declined during deglaciation, according to neodymium isotope records.

    • Christina S. Larkin
    • , Mohamed M. Ezat
    •  & Alex M. Piotrowski

  • News & Views |

    Enhanced formation of clay in marine sediments in the lead up to the end-Permian mass extinction likely pulled the Earth back into a hot, high-CO2 state similar to that of the Precambrian.

    • Hana Jurikova

  • Article |

    Retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the late Oligocene was caused primarily by a tectonically driven marine transgression, according to a compilation of Ross Sea surface temperature estimates throughout the Cenozoic.

    • B. Duncan
    • , R. McKay
    •  & J. Bendle

  • News & Views |

    Modelling indicates that a return to fully normal marine conditions in the Mediterranean following the flooding that ended the Messinian Salinity Crisis was delayed by salt transfers and temporarily enhanced stratification.

    • Angelo Camerlenghi

  • Article |

    Spontaneous, rapid climate fluctuations occur when atmospheric CO2 is between 190 and 225 ppm, helping explain short-term warm–cool transitions during glacial climate states, according to combined Earth system and dynamical systems model simulations.

    • Guido Vettoretti
    • , Peter Ditlevsen
    •  & Sune Olander Rasmussen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Heat stored in the deep ocean due to salinity stratification contributed to rapid Antarctic warming during middle and late Pleistocene glacial terminations, according to coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model simulations.

    • Gregor Knorr
    • , Stephen Barker
    •  & Lennert B. Stap

  • Article |

    Millennial-scale climate oscillations can arise from orbital forcing alone during relatively stable glacial climate states, according to an analysis of high- and low-latitude climate proxy records as well as climate modelling.

    • Xu Zhang
    • , Stephen Barker
    •  & Fahu Chen

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