Meltwater routing and the Younger Dryas

Journal Article · Mon Dec 03 23:00:00 EST 2012 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1207381109 · OSTI ID:1105906

Condron, Alan ^[1]; Winsor, Peter ^[2]

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1. Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (United States). Dept. of Geosciences, Climate System Research Center; Univ of AK-Fairbanks
2. Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK (United States). Inst. of Marine Science, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences

The Younger Dryas -- the last major cold episode on Earth -- is generally considered to have been triggered by a meltwater flood into the North Atlantic. The prevailing hypothesis, proposed by Broecker et al. [1989 Nature 341:318–321] more than two decades ago, suggests that an abrupt rerouting of Lake Agassiz overflow through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Valley inhibited deep water formation in the subpolar North Atlantic and weakened the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).More recently, Tarasov and Peltier [2005 Nature 435:662–665] showed that meltwater could have discharged into the Arctic Ocean via the Mackenzie Valley ~4,000 km northwest of the St. Lawrence outlet. Here we use a sophisticated, high-resolution, ocean sea-ice model to study the delivery of meltwater from the two drainage outlets to the deep water formation regions in the North Atlantic. Unlike the hypothesis of Broecker et al., freshwater from the St. Lawrence Valley advects into the subtropical gyre ~3,000 km south of the North Atlantic deep water formation regions and weakens the AMOC by <15%. In contrast, narrow coastal boundary currents efficiently deliver meltwater from the Mackenzie Valley to the deep water formation regions of the subpolar North Atlantic and weaken the AMOC by >30%. We conclude that meltwater discharge from the Arctic, rather than the St. Lawrence Valley, was more likely to have triggered the Younger Dryas cooling.

• Research Organization: Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: FG02-09ER64725
• OSTI ID: 1105906
• Journal Information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Journal Issue: 49 Vol. 109; ISSN 0027-8424
• Publisher: National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (United States)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English