Lorraine E. Lisiecki

Northern Hemisphere forcing of climatic cycles in Antarctica over the past 360,000 years.

The Milankovitch theory of climate change proposes that glacial–interglacial cycles are driven by changes in summer insolation at high northern latitudes. The timing of climate change in the Southern Hemisphere at glacial–interglacial transitions (which are known as terminations) relative to variations in summer insolation in the Northern Hemisphere is an important test of this hypothesis. So far, it has only been possible to apply this test to the most recent termination, because the dating uncertainty associated with older terminations is too large to allow phase relationships to be determined. Here we present a new chronology of Antarctic climate change over the past 360,000 years that is based on the ratio of oxygen to nitrogen molecules in air trapped in the Dome Fuji and Vostok ice cores. This ratio is a proxy for local summer insolation, and thus allows the chronology to be constructed by orbital tuning without the need to assume a lag between a climate record and an orbital parameter. The accuracy of the chronology allows us to examine the phase relationships between climate records from the ice cores and changes in insolation. Our results indicate that orbital-scale Antarctic climate change lags Northern Hemisphere insolation by a few millennia, and that the increases in Antarctic temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration during the last four terminations occurred within the rising phase of Northern Hemisphere summer insolation. These results support the Milankovitch theory that Northern Hemisphere summer insolation triggered the last four deglaciations.

Correction to “A Pliocene‐Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records”

[1] In the paper ‘‘A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic dO records’’ by Lorraine E. Lisiecki and Maureen E. Raymo (Paleoceanography, 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071, 2005), the precession phases of the stack relative to June 21 insolation were incorrect in Figure 7. The correctly plotted figure is given here. All of the phase values provided in the text of the original article were correct.

Atlantic overturning responses to Late Pleistocene climate forcings

The factors driving glacial changes in ocean overturning circulation are not well understood. On the basis of a comparison of 20 climate variables over the past four glacial cycles, the SPECMAP project proposed that summer insolation at high northern latitudes (that is, Milankovitch forcing) drives the same sequence of ocean circulation and other climate responses over 100-kyr eccentricity cycles, 41-kyr obliquity cycles and 23-kyr precession cycles. SPECMAP analysed the circulation response at only a few sites in the Atlantic Ocean, however, and the phase of circulation response has been shown to vary by site and orbital band. Here we test the SPECMAP hypothesis by measuring the phase of orbital responses in benthic δ13C (a proxy indicator of ocean nutrient content) at 24 sites throughout the Atlantic over the past 425 kyr. On the basis of δ13C responses at 3,000–4,010 m water depth, we find that maxima in Milankovitch forcing are associated with greater mid-depth overturning in the obliquity band but less overturning in the precession band. This suggests that Atlantic overturning is strongly sensitive to factors beyond ice volume and summer insolation at high northern latitudes. A better understanding of these processes could lead to improvements in model estimates of overturning rates, which range from a 40 per cent increase to a 40 per cent decrease at the Last Glacial Maximum and a 10–50 per cent decrease over the next 140 yr in response to projected increases in atmospheric CO2 (ref. 4).

Deglacial whole-ocean δ13C change estimated from 480 benthic foraminiferal records

Terrestrial carbon storage is dramatically decreased during glacial periods due to cold temperatures, increased aridity, and the presence of large ice sheets on land. Most of the carbon released by the terrestrial biosphere is stored in the ocean, where the light isotopic signature of terrestrial carbon is observed as a 0.32–0.7‰ depletion in benthic foraminiferal δ13C. The wide range in estimated δ13C change results from the use of different subsets of benthic δ13C data and different methods of weighting the mean δ13C by volume. We present a more precise estimate of glacial-interglacial δ13C change of marine dissolved inorganic carbon using benthic Cibicidoides spp. δ13C records from 480 core sites (more than 3 times as many sites as previous studies). We divide the ocean into eight regions to generate linear regressions of regional δ13C versus depth for the Late Holocene (0–6 ka) and Last Glacial Maximum (19–23 ka) and estimate a mean δ13C decrease of 0.38 ± 0.08‰ (2σ) for 0.5–5 km. Estimating large uncertainty ranges for δ13C change in the top 0.5 km, below 5 km, and in the Southern Ocean, we calculate a whole-ocean change of 0.34 ± 0.19‰. This implies a terrestrial carbon change that is consistent with recent vegetation model estimates of 330–694 Gt C. Additionally, we find that a well-constrained surface ocean δ13C change is essential for narrowing the uncertainty range of estimated whole-ocean δ13C change.

A phase-space model for Pleistocene ice volume

article i nfo We present a phase-space model that simulates Pleistocene ice volume changes based on Earths orbital parameters. Terminations in the model are triggered by a combination of ice volume and orbital forcing and agree well with age estimates for Late Pleistocene terminations. The average phase at which model terminations begin is approximately 90±90 ∘ before the maxima in all three orbital cycles. The large variability in phase is likely caused by interactions between the three cycles and ice volume. Unlike previous ice volume models, this model produces an orbitally driven increase in 100-kyr power during the mid- Pleistocene transition without any change in model parameters. This supports the hypothesis that Pleistocene variations in the 100-kyr power of glacial cycles could be caused, at least in part, by changes in Earths orbital parameters, such as amplitude modulation of the 100-kyr eccentricity cycle, rather than changes within the climate system.

Atlantic overturning responses to obliquity and precession over the last 3 Myr

This study analyzes 39 Atlantic and seven Pacific benthic δ13C records to characterize obliquity and precession responses in Atlantic overturning since 3 Ma. Regional benthic δ13C stacks are also analyzed. A major transition in orbital responses is observed at 1.5–1.6 Ma coincident with the first glacial shoaling of Northern Component Water. Since ∼1.5 Ma, the phases of Atlantic benthic δ13C records from 2300 to 4000 m depth lag maximum obliquity by 59° (6.7 kyr) and June perihelion precession forcing by 133° (8.5 kyr). Comparison with North Atlantic sea surface temperature suggests that these orbital responses (particularly precession) in middle deep Atlantic δ13C are associated with changes in ocean heat transport and overturning rates. The mid-Pleistocene transition had little effect on the obliquity and precession phases of benthic δ13C but did result in a ∼50% decrease in the obliquity power of middle deep Atlantic δ13C at 0.6 Ma.

Regional and global benthic δ18O stacks for the last glacial cycle

Although detailed age models exist for some marine sediment records of the last glacial cycle (0–150 ka), age models for many cores rely on the stratigraphic correlation of benthic δ18O, which measures ice volume and deep ocean temperature change. The large amount of data available for the last glacial cycle offers the opportunity to improve upon previous benthic δ18O compilations, such as the “LR04” global stack. Not only are the age constraints for the LR04 stack now outdated but a single global alignment target neglects regional differences of several thousand years in the timing of benthic δ18O change during glacial terminations. Here we present regional stacks that characterize mean benthic δ18O change for 8 ocean regions and a volume-weighted global stack of data from 263 cores. Age models for these stacks are based on radiocarbon data from 0 to 40 ka, correlation to a layer-counted Greenland ice core from 40 to 56 ka, and correlation to radiometrically dated speleothems from 56 to 150 ka. The regional δ18O stacks offer better stratigraphic alignment targets than the LR04 global stack and, furthermore, suggest that the LR04 stack is biased 1–2 kyr too young throughout the Pleistocene. Finally, we compare global and regional benthic δ18O responses with sea level estimates for the last glacial cycle.

Probabilistic sequence alignment of stratigraphic records

The assessment of age uncertainty in stratigraphically aligned records is a pressing need in paleoceanographic research. The alignment of ocean sediment cores is used to develop mutually consistent age models for climate proxies and is often based on the δ18O of calcite from benthic foraminifera, which records a global ice volume and deep water temperature signal. To date, δ18O alignment has been performed by manual, qualitative comparison or by deterministic algorithms. Here we present a hidden Markov model (HMM) probabilistic algorithm to find 95% confidence bands for δ18O alignment. This model considers the probability of every possible alignment based on its fit to the δ18O data and transition probabilities for sedimentation rate changes obtained from radiocarbon-based estimates for 37 cores. Uncertainty is assessed using a stochastic back trace recursion to sample alignments in exact proportion to their probability. We applied the algorithm to align 35 late Pleistocene records to a global benthic δ18O stack and found that the mean width of 95% confidence intervals varies between 3 and 23 kyr depending on the resolution and noisiness of the records δ18O signal. Confidence bands within individual cores also vary greatly, ranging from ~0 to >40 kyr. These alignment uncertainty estimates will allow researchers to examine the robustness of their conclusions, including the statistical evaluation of lead-lag relationships between events observed in different cores.

Calibration of the carbon isotope composition (δ13C) of benthic foraminifera

The carbon isotope composition (δ13C) of seawater provides valuable insight on ocean circulation, air-sea exchange, the biological pump, and the global carbon cycle and is reflected by the δ13C of foraminifera tests. Here more than 1700 δ13C observations of the benthic foraminifera genus Cibicides from late Holocene sediments (δ13CCibnat) are compiled and compared with newly updated estimates of the natural (preindustrial) water column δ13C of dissolved inorganic carbon (δ13CDICnat) as part of the international Ocean Circulation and Carbon Cycling (OC3) project. Using selection criteria based on the spatial distance between samples, we find high correlation between δ13CCibnat and δ13CDICnat, confirming earlier work. Regression analyses indicate significant carbonate ion (−2.6 ± 0.4) × 10−3‰/(μmol kg−1) [CO32−] and pressure (−4.9 ± 1.7) × 10−5‰ m−1 (depth) effects, which we use to propose a new global calibration for predicting δ13CDICnat from δ13CCibnat. This calibration is shown to remove some systematic regional biases and decrease errors compared with the one-to-one relationship (δ13CDICnat = δ13CCibnat). However, these effects and the error reductions are relatively small, which suggests that most conclusions from previous studies using a one-to-one relationship remain robust. The remaining standard error of the regression is generally σ ≅ 0.25‰, with larger values found in the southeast Atlantic and Antarctic (σ ≅ 0.4‰) and for species other than Cibicides wuellerstorfi. Discussion of species effects and possible sources of the remaining errors may aid future attempts to improve the use of the benthic δ13C record.

The role of uncertainty in estimating lead/lag relationships in marine sedimentary archives: A case study from the tropical Pacific†

Understanding the mechanisms behind any changes in the climate system often requires establishing the timing of events imprinted on the geological record. However, these proxy records are prone to large uncertainties, which may preclude meaningful conclusions about the relative timing of events. In this study, we put forth a framework to estimate the uncertainty in phase relationships inferred from marine sedimentary records. The novelty of our method lies in the accounting of the various sources of uncertainty inherent to paleoclimate reconstruction and timing analysis. Specifically, we use a Monte-Carlo process allowing sampling of possible realizations of the time series as functions of uncertainties in time, the climate proxy, and the identification of the termination timing. We then apply this technique to 15 published sea surface temperature records from the equatorial Pacific to evaluate whether we observed any significant changes in the termination timing between the East and the West. We find that the uncertainty on the relative timing estimates is on the order of several thousand years, and mainly stems from age model uncertainty (90%). However, even small differences in mean termination timings can be detected with a sufficiently large number of samples. Improvements in the dating of sediment records provide an opportunity to reduce uncertainty in studies of this kind.