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Title: Can We Better Constrain the Timing of GNAIW/UNADW Variability in the Western Equatorial Atlantic and Its Relationship to Climate Change During the Last Deglaciation?

Journal Article · · Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2020pa004187· OSTI ID:1828663
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [4];  [5]
  1. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME (United States)
  3. Greenwings Biomedical, Irvine, CA (United States)
  4. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Univ. of Oxford (United Kingdom)
  5. Williams College, Williamstown, MA (United States)

We have revisited the well-trod VM28-122 core retrieved from the deep Colombian Basin, which includes sediments that reflect modern Upper North Atlantic Deep Water and extends through the last deglaciation into the last glacial period when the site was bathed in Glacial North Atlantic Intermediate Water. Here, we leverage the nearby Cariaco Basin's surface water radiocarbon reconstruction (reservoir age, and ΔR) on the IntCal20 timescale to recast the period of the last deglaciation with a newly constrained age model. Based on the revised age model, we observe that the multimillennial decrease in benthic δ13C and B/Ca (which record δ13C of dissolved inorganic carbon and Δ[CO3–2], respectively) began at 18,100 ± 240 (95% CI) calibrated years BP, synchronous with Termination 1, as identified by changes in the Antarctic Ice Sheet composite and by the onset of rapid glacier recession in the Southern Hemisphere (Denton et al., 2010, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1184119; Denton et al., 2021, https://10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106771). The beginning of the decrease in benthic δ18O is concurrent with the changes in carbon chemistry or at most, a few hundred years later. It is no later than 17,700 ± 300 (95% CI) yrs BP in our record, at the putative start of Heinrich Stadial 1. With sufficient data density (more than 2–3 control points per kyr) and an independent record of past surface water radiocarbon variations, it is possible to achieve late glacial and deglacial chronologies with fidelities similar to those of ice cores. Furthermore, doing so in more oceanographic locations should shed light more broadly on the mechanisms instrumental to abrupt climate change.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1828663
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-824716; 1038275
Journal Information:
Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, Vol. 36, Issue 8; ISSN 2572-4517
Publisher:
Wiley; American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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