Terrestrial chronologies from southern Greenland provide a detailed deglacial history of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS). The northern GIS margin history, however, is less established. Here we present surface exposure ages from moraines associated with two large outlet glaciers, Petermann and Humboldt, in the northwestern sector of the GIS. These...
The mass accumulation rates of sedimentary components (carbonate, organic carbon, opal, barite, reactive phosphate, iron, terrigenous minerals, etc.) are used in many paleoceanographic reconstructions to learn about temporal and spatial changes in surficial Earth processes including wind stress and direction, oceanic circulation, weathering rates, marine productivity and ecosystem structure, climate...
We constructed biogenic mass accumulation rate (MAR) time series for eastern Pacific core transects across the equator at ~105˚and ~85˚W and along the equator from 80˚to 140˚W. We used empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis to extract spatially coherent patterns of CaCO₃deposition for the last 150 kyr. EOF mode 1 (51%...
The sensitivity of the tropics to climate change, particularly the amplitude of glacial‐to‐interglacial changes in sea surface temperature (SST), is one of the great controversies in paleoclimatology. Here we reassess faunal estimates of ice age SSTs, focusing on the problem of no‐analog planktonic foraminiferal assemblages in the equatorial oceans that...
Benthic foraminiferal δ¹³C data from site 502 in the Caribbean Sea (sill depth 1800 m) indicate that throughout the past 2.6 m.y., glacial δ¹³C values in the middepth Atlantic were higher during glaciations than interglaciations. This is interpreted as indicating a greater proportion of Upper North Atlantic Deep Water (UNADW)...
We evaluate the reliability of statistical estimates of sea surface temperature (SST) derived from planktonic foraminiferal faunas using the modern analog method and the Imbrie‐Kipp method. Global core top faunas provide a calibration data set, while modern sediment trap faunas are used for validation. Linear regression of core top predicted...
Sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity of the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) reflect global climate effects such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation phenomenon. However, reconstructions of past changes in the WPWP from the geologic record vary depending on the specific proxy record used. Here we develop a multiproxy record...
More than 7 km of long and relatively continuous sediment sequences
from 11 sites in the southeast and equatorial Pacific were recovered
during Leg 202 for the study of the Earth’s climate and biogeochemical
systems on scales that range from tectonic (millions of
years) to orbital (tens to hundreds of...
Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 138 was designed to study the late Neogene paleoceanography of the equatorial Pacific Ocean at time scales of thousands to millions of years. Crucial to this objective was the acquisition of continuous, high-resolution sedimentary records. It is well known that between successive advanced piston corer...
Sediment spectral reflectance measurements were generated aboard the JOIDES Resolution during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 162 shipboard operations. The large size of the raw data set (over 1.3 gigabytes) and limited computer hard disk storage space precluded detailed analysis of the data at sea, although broad band averages were used...
Benthic foraminifer and δ¹³C data from Site 849, on the west flank of the East Pacific Rise (0°11'N, 110°3l'W; 3851 m), give relatively continuous records of deep Pacific Ocean stable isotope variations between 0 and 5 Ma. The mean sample spacing is 4 k.y. Most analyses are from Cibicides wuellerstorfi>...
Here we present the first downcore results for a new paleoproxy, the Mn/Ca ratio of foraminiferal calcite, applied to sediment accumulated in the extreme Eastern Tropical North Pacific (ETNP) over the last 30,000 years. The Mn/Ca results are compared to oxygen isotopes and sea surface temperature calculated from Mg/Ca. We...
Study of the eolian fraction of late Quaternary sediments from the tropical Atlantic reveals that two modes of long-term climate variability have existed in tropical Africa during the last 150,000 yr. Tropical northwest Africa (i.e., the southwestern Sahara and Sahel) was driest during glaciations and stades, but wetter than at...
Most of the policy debate surrounding the actions needed to mitigate and adapt to anthropogenic climate change has been framed by observations of the past 150 years as well as climate and sea-level projections for the twenty-first century. The focus on this 250-year window, however, obscures some of the most...
We use flux, dissolution, and excess ²³⁰Th data from the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study and Manganese Nodule Project equatorial Pacific study Site C to assess the extent of sediment focusing in the equatorial Pacific. Measured mass accumulation rates (MAR) from sediment cores were compared to reconstructed MAR by multiplying...
Sea surface temperatures (SST) and inorganic continental input over the last 25,000 years (25 ka) are reconstructed in the far eastern equatorial Pacific (EEP) based on three cores stretching from the equatorial front (~0.01°N, ME0005-24JC) into the cold tongue region (~3.6°S; TR163-31P and V19-30). We revisit previously published alkenone-derived SST...
Assessing impacts of future anthropogenic carbon emissions is currently impeded by uncertainties in our knowledge of equilibrium climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide doubling. Previous studies suggest 3 K as best estimate, 2–4.5 K as the 66% probability range, and non-zero probabilities for much higher values, the latter implying a...
Deciphering the evolution of global climate from the end of the Last Glacial Maximum approximately 19 ka to the early Holocene 11 ka presents an outstanding opportunity for understanding the transient response of Earth's climate system to external and internal forcings. During this interval of global warming, the decay of...
Biogenic opal, organic carbon, organic matter stable isotope, and trace metal data from
a well-dated, high-resolution jumbo piston core (EW0408–85JC; 59° 33.3′N, 144° 9.21′W,
682 m water depth) recovered from the northern Gulf of Alaska continental slope reveal
changes in productivity and nutrient utilization over the last 17,000 years. Maximum...
We examine the relation between δ¹⁸O in rainwater collected in southwestern Oregon
and climate variables including temperature, parcel trajectory, precipitation amount, and
specific humidity. Local surface air temperature at the time of sample collection explains a
large proportion of δ¹⁸O variability, suggesting that paleoclimatic archives that are related
to rainfall...