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:

North American ice-sheet dynamics and the onset of 100,000-year glacial cycles

Nature volume 454, pages 869–872 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The onset of major glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere about 2.7 million years ago1 was most probably induced by climate cooling during the late Pliocene epoch2,3. These glaciations, during which the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets successively expanded and retreated, are superimposed on this long-term climate trend, and have been linked to variations in the Earth’s orbital parameters4. One intriguing problem associated with orbitally driven glacial cycles is the transition from 41,000-year to 100,000-year climatic cycles that occurred without an apparent change in insolation forcing5. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the transition, both including and excluding ice-sheet dynamics6,7,8,9,10. Difficulties in finding a conclusive answer to this palaeoclimatic problem are related to the lack of sufficiently long records of ice-sheet volume or sea level. Here we use a comprehensive ice-sheet model and a simple ocean-temperature model11 to extract three-million-year mutually consistent records of surface air temperature, ice volume and sea level from marine benthic oxygen isotopes12. Although these records and their relative phasings are subject to considerable uncertainty owing to limited availability of palaeoclimate constraints, the results suggest that the gradual emergence of the 100,000-year cycles can be attributed to the increased ability of the merged North American ice sheets to survive insolation maxima and reach continental-scale size. The oversized, wet-based ice sheet probably responded to the subsequent insolation maximum by rapid thinning through increased basal-sliding13,14, thereby initiating a glacial termination. Based on our assessment of the temporal changes in air temperature and ice volume during individual glacials, we demonstrate the importance of ice dynamics and ice–climate interactions in establishing the 100,000-year glacial cycles, with enhanced North American ice-sheet growth and the subsequent merging of the ice sheets being key elements.

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: Three-million-year time series of marine oxygen isotope values, subarctic surface air temperature and ice volume.
Figure 2: Phase lags of input/reconstructed variables, as evaluated using Blackman–Tukey cross-spectral analysis with 30% lags.
Figure 3: Time series of ice volume and Northern Hemisphere subarctic surface air temperature between 1.5 and 0.5 Myr ago, across the MPT.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Raymo, M. E. The initiation of Northern Hemisphere glaciation. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 22, 353–383 (1994)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Lear, C. H., Elderffield, H. & Wilson, P. A. Cenozoic deep-sea temperatures and global ice volumes from Mg/Ca in benthic foraminiferal calcite. Science 287, 269–272 (2000)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Lawrence, K. T., Zhonghui, L. & Herbert, T. D. Evolution of the eastern tropical Pacific through Plio-Pleistocene glaciation. Science 312, 79–83 (2006)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Hays, J. D., Imbrie, J. & Shackleton, N. J. Variation in the Earth’s orbit: Pacemaker of the ice ages. Science 194, 1121–1132 (1976)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Clark, P. U. et al. The middle Pleistocene transition: Characteristics, mechanisms, and implication for long-term changes in atmospheric pCO2 . Quat. Sci. Rev. 25, 3150–3184 (2006)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Berger, A., Li, X. S. & Loutre, M. F. Modelling northern hemisphere ice volume over the last 3 Ma. Quat. Sci. Rev. 18, 1–11 (1999)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Clark, P. U. & Pollard, D. Origin of the Middle Pleistocene transition by ice sheet erosion of regolith. Paleoceanography 13, 1–9 (1998)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Tziperman, E. & Gildor, H. On the mid-Pleistocene transition to 100-kyr glacial cycles and the asymmetry between glaciation and deglaciation times. Paleoceanography 18 1001 10.1029/2001PA000627 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Muller, R. A. & MacDonald, G. J. Glacial cycles and orbital inclination. Nature 377, 107–108 (1995)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Raymo, M. E., Lisiecki, L. E. & Nisancioglu, K. H. Plio-Pleistocene ice volume, Antarctic climate, and the global δ 18O record. Science 313, 492–495 (2006)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Bintanja, R., van de Wal, R. S. W. & Oerlemans, J. Modelled atmospheric temperatures and global sea level over the past million years. Nature 437, 125–128 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Lisiecki, L. E. & Raymo, M. E. A. Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records. Paleoceanography 20 10.1029/2004PA001071 (2005)

  13. Clark, P. U., Alley, R. B. & Pollard, D. Northern Hemisphere ice-sheet influences on global climate change. Science 286, 1104–1111 (1999)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Marshall, S. J. & Clark, P. U. Basal temperature evolution of North American ice sheets and implications for the 100-kyr cycle. Geophys. Res. Lett. 29 10.1029/2002GL015192 (2002)

  15. Lisiecki, L. E. & Raymo, M. E. Plio-Pleistocene climate revolution: Trend and transitions in glacial cycles. Quat. Sci. Rev. 26, 56–69 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Raymo, M. E. & Nisancioglu, K. H. The 41 kyr world: Milankovitch’s other unsolved mystery. Paleoceanography 18 1011 10.1029/2002PA00791 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  17. Imbrie, J. et al. in Milankovitch and Climate (ed. Berger, A. L.) 269–305 (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1984)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Maslin, M. A., Li, X. S., Loutre, M. F. & Berger, A. The contribution of orbital forcing to the progressive intensification of northern hemisphere glaciation. Quat. Sci. Res. 17, 411–426 (1998)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  19. Ruddiman, W. F. Orbital insolation, ice volume and greenhouse gases. Quat. Sci. Rev. 22, 1597–1629 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  20. Shackleton, N. J. The 100,000-year ice-age cycle identified and found to lag temperature, carbon dioxide, and orbital eccentricity. Science 289, 1897–1902 (2000)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Maslin, M. A. & Ridgewell, A. J. in Early-Middle Pleistocene Transitions: The Land-Ocean Evidence (eds Head, M. J. & Gibbard, P.L.) 19–34 (GSL Special Publication Vol. 247, Geological Society, London, 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Valdes, P. & Glover, R. W. Modelling the climate response to orbital forcing. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 357, 1873–1890 (1999)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  23. Shackleton, N. J. et al. Oxygen isotope calibration of the onset of ice-rafting and history of glaciation in the North Atlantic region. Nature 307, 620–623 (1984)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Raymo, M. E. The timing of major climate terminations. Paleoceanography 12, 577–585 (1997)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  25. Kawamura, K. et al. Northern Hemisphere forcing of climatic cycles in Antarctica over the past 360,000 years. Nature 448, 912–916 (2007)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Huybers, P. Glacial variability over the last two million years: An extended depth-derived age model, continuous obliquity pacing, and the Pleistocene progression. Quat. Sci. Rev. 26, 37–55 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  27. Weertman, J. Stability of the junction between an ice sheet and an ice shelf. J. Glaciol. 13, 3–11 (1974)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  28. Parrenin, F. & Paillard, D. Amplitude and phase of glacial cycles from a conceptual model. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 214, 243–250 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Alley, R. B. & Clark, P. U. The deglaciation of the Northern Hemisphere: A global perspective. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 27, 149–182 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Financial support to R.B. was provided by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO), in the framework of the SPINOZA award of J. Oerlemans, and through the EU programme Quantify. This work was initiated during the start-up phase of the Utrecht Centre for Geosciences (UCG) programme. We thank W. Greuell, D. Lea, L. Lourens, M. Siddall and N. Weber for remarks on earlier versions of the paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), Wilhelminalaan 10, 3732 GK De Bilt, The Netherlands ,

    R. Bintanja

  2. Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht (IMAU), Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands ,

    R. Bintanja & R. S. W. van de Wal

Authors
  1. R. Bintanja
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. R. S. W. van de Wal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. Bintanja.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information

This file contains Supplementary Methods with additional references and Supplementary Figures 1-6 with Legends. In this file, the methods and uncertainty estimate are discussed in more detail. Moreover, a comparison between our reconstructed data and independent paleotemperature records is shown. Finally, the mechanisms associated with the middle Pleistocene transition and the 100-kyr glacial cycles, including the inception and termination phases, are discussed in detail. (PDF 12004 kb)

Supplementary information

This file contains Supplementary Data. (TXT 2061 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bintanja, R., van de Wal, R. North American ice-sheet dynamics and the onset of 100,000-year glacial cycles. Nature 454, 869–872 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07158

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07158

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

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