Sea surface temperature reconstruction for the middle Pleistocene from sediment core MD03-2699

Past sea surface water conditions of the western Iberian Margin were reconstructed based on biomarker analyses of a marine deep sea core MD03-2699 from the Estremadura Spur north off Lisbon, providing new insights into orbital and suborbital-scale climate variability between marine isotope stage (MIS) 15 to MIS 9 (580 to 300 ka). We use biomarker-based proxy records such as the alkenone unsaturated index to estimate sea surface temperature (SST), the total alkenone concentration to reconstruct phytoplankton productivity, and terrestrial biomarkers to evaluate the continental input. The results extend the existing biomarker record, namely the SST for the Iberian Margin, back to the sixth climatic cycle (580 ka). A general trend of stable interglacials contrasts with glacial periods and glacial inceptions which are marked by high-frequency variability. Thus, several short-lived climatic coolings were identified by large SST decreases, the occurrence of ice-rafted detritus and high percentages of the tetraunsaturated alkenone C 37:4. Some of these events were extremely cold and similar in their general trends to the well-known Heinrich events of the last glaciation. We identified eight Heinrich-type events between 580 and 300 ka. The general deglaciation pattern detected between MIS 15 and MIS 9 is similar in their general trends to that characterizing the more recent climatic cycles, i.e., marked by two coolings separated by a short warming episode which may reflect the southward, northward, and southward migration of the Polar Front.

Summer sea surface temperatures calculated from radiolaria at ODP Site 177-1089 in the subantarctic Atlantic

A submillennial resolution, radiolarian-based record of summer sea surface temperature (SST) documents the last five glacial to interglacial transitions at the subtropical front, southern Atlantic Ocean. Rapid fluctuations occur both during glacial and interglacial intervals, and sudden cooling episodes at glacial terminations are recurrent. Surface hydrography and global ice volume proxies from the same core suggest that summer SST increases prior to terminations lead global ice-volume decreases by 4.7 ± 3.7 ka (in the eccentricity band), 6.9 ± 2.5 ka (obliquity), and 2.7 ± 0.9 ka (precession). A comparison between SST and benthic delta13C suggests a decoupling in the response of northern subantarctic surface, intermediate, and deep water masses to cold events in the North Atlantic. The matching features between our SST record and the one from core MD97-2120 (southwest Pacific) suggests that the super-regional expression of climatic events is substantially affected by a single climatic agent: the Subtropical Front, amplifier and vehicle for the transfer of climatic change. The direct correlation between warmer DeltaTsite at Vostok and warmer SST at ODP Site 1089 suggests that warmer oceanic/atmospheric conditions imply a more southward placed frontal system, weaker gradients, and therefore stronger Agulhas input to the Atlantic Ocean.