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Title: Coherent Response of Antarctic Intermediate Water and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation During the Last Deglaciation: Reconciling Contrasting Neodymium Isotope Reconstructions From the Tropical Atlantic

Journal Article · · Paleoceanography
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2017PA003092· OSTI ID:1481977
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [6]
  1. Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI (United States)
  2. Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI (United States); The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
  3. Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  4. Univ. of Bern, Bern (Switzerland)
  5. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  6. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA (United States)

Abstract Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) plays important roles in the global climate system and the global ocean nutrient and carbon cycles. However, it is unclear how AAIW responds to global climate changes. In particular, neodymium isotopic composition ( ε Nd ) reconstructions from different locations from the tropical Atlantic have led to a debate on the relationship between northward penetration of AAIW into the tropical Atlantic and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) variability during the last deglaciation. We resolve this controversy by studying the transient oceanic evolution during the last deglaciation using a neodymium‐enabled ocean model. Our results suggest a coherent response of AAIW and AMOC: when AMOC weakens, the northward penetration and transport of AAIW decrease while its depth and thickness increase. Our study highlights that as part of the return flow of the North Atlantic Deep Water, the northward penetration of AAIW in the Atlantic is determined predominately by AMOC intensity. Moreover, the inconsistency among different tropical Atlantic ε Nd reconstructions is reconciled by considering their corresponding core locations and depths, which were influenced by different water masses in the past. The very radiogenic water from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, which was previously overlooked in the interpretations of deglacial ε Nd variability, can be transported to shallow layers during active AMOC and modulates ε Nd in the tropical Atlantic. Changes in the AAIW core depth must also be considered. Thus, interpretation of ε Nd reconstructions from the tropical Atlantic is more complicated than suggested in previous studies.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396; DE‐SC0006744
OSTI ID:
1481977
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1402547
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-18-20281
Journal Information:
Paleoceanography, Vol. 32, Issue 10; ISSN 0883-8305
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 18 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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  • van de Flierdt, Tina; Griffiths, Alexander M.; Lambelet, Myriam
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 374, Issue 2081 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2015.0293
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Cited By (4)

Deglacial carbon cycle changes observed in a compilation of 127 benthic δ13C time series (20–6 ka) journal January 2018
Changes in Intermediate Circulation in the Bay of Bengal Since the Last Glacial Maximum as Inferred From Benthic Foraminifera Assemblages and Geochemical Proxies journal March 2019
Data Constraints on Glacial Atlantic Water Mass Geometry and Properties journal September 2018
Deglacial Heat Uptake by the Southern Ocean and Rapid Northward Redistribution Via Antarctic Intermediate Water journal November 2018

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