Glacial terminations as southern warmings without northern control

Wolff, E. W.; Fischer, H.; Röthlisberger, R. (2009). Glacial terminations as southern warmings without northern control. Nature geoscience, 2(3), pp. 206-209. London: Nature Publishing Group 10.1038/ngeo442

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The change from a glacial to an interglacial climate is paced by variations in Earth’s orbit1. However, the detailed sequence of events that leads to a glacial termination remains controversial. It is particularly unclear whether the northern2,3 or southern4,5,6 hemisphere leads the termination. Here we present a hypothesis for the beginning and continuation of glacial terminations, which relies on the observation that the initial stages of terminations are indistinguishable from the warming stage of events in Antarctica known as Antarctic Isotopic Maxima7, which occur frequently during glacial periods. Such warmings in Antarctica generally begin to reverse with the onset of a warm Dansgaard–Oeschger event in the northern hemisphere7,8. However, in the early stages of a termination, Antarctic warming is not followed by any abrupt warming in the north. We propose that the lack of an Antarctic climate reversal enables southern warming and the associated atmospheric carbon dioxide rise to reach a point at which full deglaciation becomes inevitable. In our view, glacial terminations, in common with other warmings that do not lead to termination, are led from the southern hemisphere, but only specific conditions in the northern hemisphere enable the climate state to complete its shift to interglacial conditions.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Physics Institute > Climate and Environmental Physics
10 Strategic Research Centers > Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR)
08 Faculty of Science > Physics Institute

UniBE Contributor:

Fischer, Hubertus

Subjects:

500 Science > 530 Physics

ISSN:

1752-0894

Publisher:

Nature Publishing Group

Language:

English

Submitter:

Factscience Import

Date Deposited:

04 Oct 2013 15:23

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:25

Publisher DOI:

10.1038/ngeo442

Web of Science ID:

000264289900022

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/37517

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/37517 (FactScience: 208790)

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