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Ocean circulation and climate during the past 120,000 years

Nature volume 419, pages 207–214 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Oceans cover more than two-thirds of our blue planet. The waters move in a global circulation system, driven by subtle density differences and transporting huge amounts of heat. Ocean circulation is thus an active and highly nonlinear player in the global climate game. Increasingly clear evidence implicates ocean circulation in abrupt and dramatic climate shifts, such as sudden temperature changes in Greenland on the order of 5–10 °C and massive surges of icebergs into the North Atlantic Ocean — events that have occurred repeatedly during the last glacial cycle.

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Figure 1: Changes in surface air temperature caused by a shutdown of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) formation in a current ocean–atmosphere circulation model.
Figure 2: Schematic of the three modes of ocean circulation that prevailed during different times of the last glacial period.
Figure 3: Temperature reconstructions from ocean sediments and Greenland ice.
Figure 4: Overview of palaeoclimatic proxy data10 characterizing warm phases (top) and cold phases (bottom) during marine oxygen isotope stage 3 (MIS-3; 59–29 kyr ago, compare with Fig. 3).

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Acknowledgements

This manuscript has benefited greatly from the advice of A. Ganopolski, R. Alley, G. Bond and M. Cane, and from the lively discussions within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Panel on Abrupt Climate Change.

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    Stefan Rahmstorf

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Rahmstorf, S. Ocean circulation and climate during the past 120,000 years. Nature 419, 207–214 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01090

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