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Correlation between Arabian Sea and Greenland climate oscillations of the past 110,000 years

Abstract

Palaeoclimate studies have revealed the general high-frequency instability of Late Pleistocene climate—for example, the so-called Dansgaard–Oeschger and Heinrich events—on timescales of a few millennia, centuries or even decades1,11. Here we present evidence for a general relationship between low-latitude monsoonal climate variability and the rapid temperature fluctuations of high northern latitudes that are recorded in the Greenland ice records. Sediment cores from the northeastern Arabian Sea show laminated, organic-carbon-rich bands, reflecting strong monsoon-induced biological productivity, that correlate with the mild interstadial climate events in the northern North Atlantic region. In contrast, periods of lowered southwest monsoonal intensity, indicated by bioturbated, organic-carbon-poor bands, are associated with intervals of high-latitude atmospheric cooling and the injection of melt water into the North Atlantic basin. Our records suggest that Dansgaard–Oeschger and Heinrich events are strongly expressed in low-latitude (monsoonal) climate variability, suggesting the importance of common forcing agents such as atmospheric moisture and other greenhouse gases.

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Figure 1: Figure 1 Location of sediment cores off Pakistan.
Figure 2: 2a-c Figure 2 Correlation of high-frequency climate variability for the past 65,000 years between ice-core and marine-sediment-core records.
Figure 3: 3a-c

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Behl, U. Berner, M. den Dulk, P. Grootes, L. Labeyrie, M. Maslin and R. Zahn for suggestions about earlier versions of the manuscript; M. Weber for processing the core logger sound velocity data of cores SO90-88/93KL; and T. Weiser, M. Geyh and P. Grootes for providing electron microprobe and radiocarbon data.

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Schulz,, H., von Rad,, U., Erlenkeuser,, H. et al. Correlation between Arabian Sea and Greenland climate oscillations of the past 110,000 years. Nature 393, 54–57 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/31750

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