Your search

The Holocene climate of the Southern Ocean is not well understood, mainly because of the lack of high-resolution reconstructions of ocean surface properties. Here we present a 12,500-yr-long, decadal-scale record of Holocene sea-surface temperatures and sea- ice presence from the Polar Front of the East Atlantic Southern Ocean. The record shows gradual climate change, with no abrupt Neoglacial cooling, and an unprecedented late Holocene warming. The dominant forcing factor appears to be precessional insolation; Northern Hemisphere summer insolation correlates to at least the early to middle Holocene climate trend. Spectral analysis reveals centennial-scale cyclic climate changes with periods of 1220, 1070, 400, and 150 yr. The record shows good correlation to East Antarctic ice cores and to climate records from South Georgia and Bunger Oasis. However, the record shows out-of-phase behavior with regard to climate records from the western Antarctic Peninsula and the Peru-Chile Current; such behavior hints at a climatic divide through Patagonia, the Drake Passage, and between West and East Antarctica.

Holocene climate variability in the southeast Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean and Antarctic is assessed and quantified through integration of available marine sediment core and Antarctic ice core data. We use summer sea surface temperature (SSST) and sea ice presence (SIP) reconstructions from two marine sediment cores recovered north (50 °S) and south (53.2 °S) of the present day Antarctic Polar Front (APF), as well as an atmospheric temperature and sea ice proxy from the EPICA ice core from Dronning Maud Land (EDML). We find reasonably good agreement in the timing of climate evolution in the analyzed series. Almost all records show a gradual glacial-to-Holocene climate transition, interrupted by the Antarctic cold reversal around 13 000 cal yr BP, and early Holocene climatic optimum (HCO) at about 11 000 cal yr BP. During the early HCO, the seasonal ice cover retreats to south of 53 °S; it then readvances in the course of the mid- to late Holocene. The maximum winter sea ice edge position during the recent 10 000 years varied mainly within 51–53 °S, with sporadic growth to north of 50 °S, a position similar to that during the last glacial. The onset of the Neoglacial period after ca 4000 yr BP is associated with a steepening of the SSST gradient between the marine core sites, strengthening of the westerlies and cooling in the inland ice sheet. The agreement in timing between elevated SSST during the early HCO and decreased deuterium excess in EDML and other ice cores from different locations in the East Antarctic suggests that the retreat of sea ice during the early HCO and weakening of the APF was a general feature of the East Antarctic climate during that time.

The available ecological and palaeoecological information for two sea ice-related marine diatoms (Bacillariophyceae), Thalassiosira antarctica Comber and Porosira glacialis (Grunow) Jørgensen, suggests that these two species have similar sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface salinity (SSS) and sea ice proximity preferences. From phytoplankton observations, both are described as summer or autumn bloom species, commonly found in low SST waters associated with sea ice, although rarely within the ice. Both species form resting spores (RS) as irradiance decreases, SST falls and SSS increases in response to freezing ice in autumn. Recent work analysing late Quaternary seasonally laminated diatom ooze from coastal Antarctic sites has revealed that sub-laminae dominated either by T. antarctica RS, or by P. glacialis RS, are nearly always deposited as the last sediment increment of the year, interpreted as representing autumn flux. In this study, we focus on sites from the East Antarctic margin and show that there is a spatial and temporal separation in whether T. antarctica RS or P. glacialis RS form the autumnal sub-laminae. For instance, in deglacial sediments from the Mertz Ninnis Trough (George V Coast) P. glacialis RS form the sub-laminae whereas in similar age sediments from Iceberg Alley (Mac.Robertson Shelf) T. antarctica RS dominate the autumn sub-lamina. In the Dumont d'Urville Trough (Adélie Land), mid-Holocene (Hypsithermal warm period) autumnal sub-laminae are dominated by T. antarctica RS whereas late Holocene (Neoglacial cool period) sub-laminae are dominated by P. glacialis RS. These observations from late Quaternary seasonally laminated sediments would appear to indicate that P. glacialis prefers slightly cooler ocean–climate conditions than T. antarctica. We test this relationship against two down-core Holocene quantitative diatom abundance records from Dumont d'Urville Trough and Svenner Channel (Princess Elizabeth Land) and compare the results with SST and sea ice concentration results of an Antarctic and Southern Ocean Holocene climate simulation that used a coupled atmosphere–sea ice–vegation model forced with orbital parameters and greenhouse gas concentrations. We find that abundance of P. glacialis RS is favoured by higher winter and spring sea ice concentrations and that a climatically-sensitive threshold exists between the abundance of P. glacialis RS and T. antarctica RS in the sediments. An increase to >0.1 for the ratio of P. glacialis RS:T. antarctica RS indicates a change to increased winter sea ice concentration (to >80% concentration), cooler spring seasons with increased sea ice, slightly warmer autumn seasons with less sea ice and a change from ~7.5months annual sea ice cover at a site to much greater than 7.5months. In the East Antarctic sediment record, an increase in the ratio from <0.1 to above 0.1 occurs at the transition from the warmer Hypsithermal climate into the cooler Neoglacial climate (~4cal kyr) indicating that the ratio between these two diatoms has the potential to be used as a semi-quantitative climate proxy.

Antarctic sea ice has paradoxically become more extensive over the past four decades despite a warming climate. The regional expression of this trend has been linked to changes in vertical redistribution of ocean heat and large-scale wind-field shifts. However, the short length of modern observations has hindered attempts to attribute this trend to anthropogenic forcing or natural variability. Here, we present two new decadal-resolution records of sea ice and sea surface temperatures that document pervasive regional climate heterogeneity in Indian Antarctic sea-ice cover over the last 2,000 years. Data assimilation of our marine records in a climate model suggests that the reconstructed dichotomous regional conditions were driven by the multi-decadal variability of the El Niño Southern Oscillation and Southern Annular Mode (SAM). For example, during an El Niño/SAM– combination, the northward sea-ice transport was reduced while heat advection from the subtropics to the Southern Ocean increased, which resulted in reduced sea-ice extent in the Indian sector as sea ice was compacted along the Antarctic coast. Our results therefore indicate that natural variability is large in the Southern Ocean and suggest that it has played a crucial role in the recent sea-ice trends and their decadal variability in this region.

A robust understanding of Antarctic Ice Sheet deglacial history since the Last Glacial Maximum is important in order to constrain ice sheet and glacial-isostatic adjustment models, and to explore the forcing mechanisms responsible for ice sheet retreat. Such understanding can be derived from a broad range of geological and glaciological datasets and recent decades have seen an upsurge in such data gathering around the continent and Sub-Antarctic islands. Here, we report a new synthesis of those datasets, based on an accompanying series of reviews of the geological data, organised by sector. We present a series of timeslice maps for 20 ka, 15 ka, 10 ka and 5 ka, including grounding line position and ice sheet thickness changes, along with a clear assessment of levels of confidence. The reconstruction shows that the Antarctic Ice sheet did not everywhere reach the continental shelf edge at its maximum, that initial retreat was asynchronous, and that the spatial pattern of deglaciation was highly variable, particularly on the inner shelf. The deglacial reconstruction is consistent with a moderate overall excess ice volume and with a relatively small Antarctic contribution to meltwater pulse 1a. We discuss key areas of uncertainty both around the continent and by time interval, and we highlight potential priorities for future work. The synthesis is intended to be a resource for the modelling and glacial geological community.