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Nearly synchronous climate change in the Northern Hemisphere during the last glacial termination

Abstract

The climate of the North Atlantic region underwent a series of abrupt cold/warm oscillations when the ice sheets of the Northern Hemisphere retreated during the last glacial termination (17.7–11.5kyr ago). Evidence for these oscillations, which are recorded in European terrestrial sediments as the Oldest Dryas/Bølling/Older Dryas/Allerød/Younger Dryas vegetational sequence1,2, has been found in Greenland ice cores3,4. The geographical extent of many of these oscillations is not well known5,6, but the last major cold event (the Younger Dryas) seems to have been global in extent7,8,9,10. Here we present evidence of four major oscillations in the hydrological balance of the Owens basin, California, that occurred during the last glacial termination. Dry events in western North America occurred at approximately the same time as cold events recorded in Greenland ice, with transitions between climate regimes in the two regions taking place within a few hundred years of each other. Our observations thus support recent climate simulations which indicate that cooling of the North Atlantic Ocean results in cooling of the North Pacific Ocean11 which, in turn, leads to a drier climate in western North America12.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Radiocarbon-age model for core OL84B between depths of 225 and 9.20m. Filled circles indicate 14C analyses on bulk organic carbon used in construction of the age model.
Figure 3: δ18O, total inorganic carbon (TIC) and pollen records for core OL84B.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Bartlein and F. Phillips for reviews and suggestions. This work was supported by the US Geological Survey Global Change Program, NSF, and the University of Southern California Faculty Research Innovation Fund. The work was performed in part under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

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Correspondence to Larry Benson.

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Benson, L., Burdett, J., Lund, S. et al. Nearly synchronous climate change in the Northern Hemisphere during the last glacial termination. Nature 388, 263–265 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/40838

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