Search

Funding: This research has been supported by the Leverhulme Trust (grant RPG-2015-246), by a Royal Society Professorship (grant no. RP/R/180003), and by a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (CIG14-631752). Volcanic eruptions are the dominant cause of natural variability in climate forcing on timescales up to multidecadal. Large volcanic eruptions lead to global-scale climate effects and influence the carbon cycle on long timescales. However, estimating the frequency of eruptions is challenging. Here we assess the frequency at which eruptions with particular deposition fluxes are observed in the EPICA Dome C ice core over the last 200 kyr. Using S isotope analysis we confirm that most of the largest peaks recorded at Dome C are from stratospheric eruptions. The cumulative frequency through 200 kyr is close to linear, suggesting an approximately constant rate of eruptions. There is no evidence for an increase in the rate of events recorded in Antarctica at either of the last two deglaciations. Millennial variability is at the level expected from recording small numbers of eruptions, while multimillennial variability may be partly due to changes in transport efficiency through the Brewer–Dobson circulation. Our record of events with sulfate deposition rates > 20 and >50 mg m−2 contains 678 and 75 eruptions, respectively, over the last 200 kyr. Calibration with data on historic eruptions and analysis of a global Quaternary dataset of terrestrial eruptions indicates that sulfate peaks with deposition rates > 20 and >50 mg m−2 correspond to explosive eruptions of magnitude ≥ 6.5 and ≥7, respectively. The largest recorded eruption deposited just over 300 mg m−2. Publisher PDF

The ~74ka Toba eruption in Indonesia was one of the largest volcanic events of the Quaternary and loaded an estimated 100 million tonnes of H2SO4 into the atmosphere. Understanding the precise timing of this colossal eruption is vital to unravelling the climatic and environmental impacts of the largest volcanic events on Earth. Sulfur aerosols injected into the stratosphere following large volcanic events scatter incoming radiation and lead to global cooling, and in the case of Toba it has been suggested that it led to cooling of 1 – 5°C and extinctions of some local hominin populations. One of the most enigmatic features of the Toba eruption is that the S peak has yet to be identified in the ice core records, although numerous candidate sulfate peaks have been identified in both Arctic and Antarctic ice cores. To address this, we analysed the sulfur isotope fingerprint (δ34S and Δ33S) of 11 Toba candidates from two Antarctic ice cores by multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. This approach allows us to evaluate injection altitudes and to distinguish large tropical eruptions from proximal eruptions because stratospheric sulfur aerosols undergo UV photochemical reactions that impart a sulfur mass-independent isotopic fractionation (S-MIF). In contrast, tropospheric sulfur aerosols do not exhibit S-MIF because they are shielded from the relevant UV radiation by the ozone layer.We identify three stratospheric, tropical eruption candidates with two recording the largest Δ33S signals measured to date in the ice core archives. The largest of these Δ33S signals is >2 ‰ more negative than previous measurements of the 1257 Samalas eruption (the largest eruption of the last 2000 years), despite having a similar integrated sulfate flux for this event to the ice core. These three candidates are within uncertainly of the Ar40/Ar39 age estimates for the Toba eruption and when considered with other paleoclimate proxies place the event during the transition into Greenland Stadial 20. Finally, we further analyse the relationship between the Toba eruption candidates and these proxies to determine the precise timing and potential climatic impacts of one of the largest eruptions of the Quaternary period.

Paleoclimate records from the North Atlantic show some of the most iconic signals of abrupt climate change during the ice ages. Here we use radiocarbon as a tracer of ocean circulation and air-sea gas exchange to investigate potential mechanisms for the abrupt climate changes seen in the North Atlantic over the last deglaciation. We have created a stack of North Atlantic surface radiocarbon reservoir ages over the past 20,000 years, using new synchronized age models from thirteen sediment cores refined with thorium normalization between tie-points. This stack shows consistent and large reservoir age increases of more than 1000 years from the LGM into HS1, dropping abruptly back to approximately modern reservoir ages before the onset of the Bolling-Allerod. We use the intermediate complexity earth system model cGENIE to investigate the potential drivers of these reservoir age changes. We find that sea ice, circulation and CO2 all play important roles in setting the reservoir age. We use these coherently dated records to revisit the sequence and timing of climatic events during HS1 and the last deglaciation, and show that Laurentide Heinrich Events are a response to stadial conditions, rather than their root cause.

The North Pacific has been thought of as a sleeping giant in Earth’s climate system. Despite being a major reservoir of heat, nutrients, and carbon, the lack of deep water formation in this region today limits the exchange of these properties. Here, using a variety of new and published sediment core data, alongside Earth system modeling, we provide evidence that the North Pacific giant is in fact a dynamic player in Earth’s climate system, with active PMOC during the LGM and deep water formation during HS1. We also demonstrate a persistent Atlantic-Pacific seesaw in deep water formation during rapid climate change events, and discuss the impact of these changes on regional climate and global CO2.

Perhaps the most important feedback to orbital climate change is CO2 storage in the deep ocean. By regulating atmospheric CO2, ocean carbon storage synchronizes glacial climate in both hemispheres, and drives the full magnitude of glacial-interglacial climate change. However few data exist that directly track the deep ocean’s carbon chemistry over a glacial cycle. Here, we present geochemical reconstructions of deep ocean circulation, redox, and carbon chemistry from sediment cores making up a detailed depth profile in the South Atlantic, alongside a record of Southern Ocean surface water CO2, spanning the last glacial cycle. These data indicate that initial glacial CO2 drawdown is associated with a major increase in surface ocean pH in the Antarctic Zone of the Southern Ocean, cooling at depth, enhanced deep ocean stratification, and carbon storage. Deep ocean carbon storage and deep stratification are further enhanced when CO2 falls at the onset of Marine Isotope Stage 4, and are also pronounced during the LGM, illustrating a link between orbital scale climate stages and deep ocean carbon. However our data also illustrate non-linear feedbacks to orbital forcing during glacial terminations, which show abrupt decreases in pH in Southern Ocean surface and subsurface waters, as CO2 is rapidly expelled from the deep ocean at the end of the last ice age.

Indian Ocean surface salinity dynamics are thought to play an important role in shaping glacial-interglacial climate through controlling Agulhas leakage efficiency. It is proposed that a strong Agulhas leakage supplies warm and salty Indian ocean surface waters to Atlantic surface currents influencing convective potential at North Atlantic deep-water formation sites. Here, we present new planktonic foraminiferal Mg/Ca and stable isotope-derived salinity reconstructions for the last 1.2Ma from the northern Mozambique channel. We find salinity increases well before terminations, followed by early decrease before glacial inception. We present a possible link between the hydrography in the northern Mozambique channel and whole ocean salinity changes due to unique surface circulation in the Indian ocean. Despite being a mostly tropical and subtropical ocean, salinity in the modern tropical Indian Ocean is fresher than at comparable latitudes in the Atlantic or Pacific. This is due to the inflow of freshwater from the Indonesian throughflow and recycling via an active Agulhas leakage. We show that salinity in the glacial western Indian Ocean was significantly higher due to a reduced ITF and a weaker Agulhas leakage. We hypothesise that opening and closing of these two gateways influences the development/diminishment of a strong subtropical Indian Ocean gyre which controls sea surface salinity and temperature of tropical Indian Ocean water masses and subsequently the efficiency of the Agulhas Leakage.

In this contribution we explore constraints on the fractions of deep water present in Indian and Pacific Oceans which originated in the northern Atlantic and in the Southern Ocean. Based on PO4* we show that if ventilated Antarctic shelf waters characterize the Southern contribution, then the proportions are close to 50–50. If instead a Southern Ocean bottom water value is used, the Southern contribution is increased to 75 %. While this larger estimate may characterize the volume of water entering the Indo-Pacific from the Southern Ocean, it contains a significant portion of entrained northern water. We also note that ventilation may be highly tracer dependent: for instance Southern Ocean waters may contribute only 35 % of the deep radiocarbon budget, even if their volumetric contribution is 75 %. In our estimation, the most promising approaches involve using CFC-11 to constrain the amount of deep water formed in the Southern Ocean.