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An interhemispheric mechanism for glacial abrupt climate change

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Abstract

The last glacial period was punctuated by abrupt climate changes that are widely considered to result from millennial-scale variability of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). However, the origin of these AMOC reorganizations remains poorly understood. The climatic connection between both hemispheres indicated by proxies suggests that the Southern Ocean (SO) could regulate this variability through changes in winds and atmospheric CO\(_{2}\) concentration. Here, we investigate this hypothesis using a coupled climate model forced by prescribed CO\(_{2}\) and SO wind-stress variations. We find that the AMOC exhibits an oscillatory behavior between weak and strong circulation regimes which is ultimately caused by changes in the meridional density gradient of the Atlantic Ocean. The evolution of the simulated climatic patterns matches the amplitude and timing of the largest events that occurred during the last glacial period and their widespread climatic impacts. Our results suggest the existence of an internal interhemispheric oscillation mediated by the bipolar seesaw that could promote glacial abrupt climate changes through variations in atmospheric CO\(_{2}\) levels, the strength of the SO winds and AMOC reorganizations, and provide an explanation for the pervasive Antarctic-like climate signal found in proxy records worldwide.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation CGL2011-29672-C02-01. R.B. is supported by a predoctoral fellowship of the Universidad Complutense (UCM). Research by J.A.S. has been partially supported by a PICATA postdoctoral fellowship of the Moncloa Campus of International Excellence (UPM-UCM). AR is funded by the European Commission’s Marie Curie 7th Framework Programme. Computational resources have been provided by the Spanish Environmental Research Center (CIEMAT) in Madrid. We are grateful to J. Adkins, R. F. Anderson and A. Griesel for fruitful discussion and to the two anonymous reviewers for useful comments that have contributed to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Astrofísica y Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Rubén Banderas, Jorge Alvarez-Solas, Alexander Robinson & Marisa Montoya

  2. Instituto de Geociencias (UCM-CSIC), Madrid, Spain

    Rubén Banderas, Jorge Alvarez-Solas, Alexander Robinson & Marisa Montoya

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  1. Rubén Banderas
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  2. Jorge Alvarez-Solas
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Correspondence to Rubén Banderas.

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Banderas, R., Alvarez-Solas, J., Robinson, A. et al. An interhemispheric mechanism for glacial abrupt climate change. Clim Dyn 44, 2897–2908 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2211-8

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