Publication Date:
2015-05-30
Description:
The causal mechanisms responsible for the abrupt climate changes of the Last Glacial Period remain unclear. One major difficulty is dating ice-rafted debris deposits associated with Heinrich events: Extensive iceberg influxes into the North Atlantic Ocean linked to global impacts on climate and biogeochemistry. In a new ice core record of atmospheric methane with ultrahigh temporal resolution, we find abrupt methane increases within Heinrich stadials 1, 2, 4, and 5 that, uniquely, have no counterparts in Greenland temperature proxies. Using a heuristic model of tropical rainfall distribution, we propose that Hudson Strait Heinrich events caused rainfall intensification over Southern Hemisphere land areas, thereby producing excess methane in tropical wetlands. Our findings suggest that the climatic impacts of Heinrich events persisted for 740 to 1520 years.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Rhodes, Rachael H -- Brook, Edward J -- Chiang, John C H -- Blunier, Thomas -- Maselli, Olivia J -- McConnell, Joseph R -- Romanini, Daniele -- Severinghaus, Jeffrey P -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 May 29;348(6238):1016-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1262005.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, 104 CEOAS Administration, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA. rhodesra@geo.oregonstate.edu. ; College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, 104 CEOAS Administration, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA. ; Department of Geography and Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. ; Center for Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. ; Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, 2215 Raggio Parkway, Reno, NV 89512, USA. ; Joseph Fourier University-Grenoble 1/CNRS, LIPhy UMR 5588, Grenoble, F-38041, France. ; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0244, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26023138" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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