The Younger Dryas Stadial (YDS; ∼12,900-11,600 y ago) in the Northern Hemisphere is classically defined by abrupt cooling and renewed glaciation during the last glacial-interglacial transition. Although this event involved a global reorganization of atmospheric and oceanic circulation [Denton GH, Alley RB, Comer GC, Broecker WS (2005) Quat Sci Rev 24:1159-1182], the magnitude, seasonality, and geographical footprint of YDS cooling remain unresolved and pose a challenge to our understanding of abrupt climate change. Here, we present a deglacial chronology from Scotland, immediately downwind of the North Atlantic Ocean, indicating that the Scottish ice cap disintegrated during the first half of the YDS. We suggest that stratification of the North Atlantic Ocean resulted in amplified seasonality that, paradoxically, stimulated a severe wintertime climate while promoting warming summers through solar heating of the mixed layer. This latter process drove deglaciation of downwind landmasses to completion well before the end of the YDS.
A lateral moraine band on Mount Waesche, a volcanic nunatak in Marie Byrd Land, provides estimates of past ice sheet surface elevations in West Antarctica. Helium-3 and chlorine-36 surface exposure ages indicate that the proximal part of the moraine, up to 45 meters above the present ice surface, was deposited about 10,000 years ago, substantially later than the maximum ice extent in the Ross Embayment. The upper distal part of the moraine may record multiple earlier ice sheet high stands. A nonequilibrium ice sheet model predicts a delay of several thousand years in maximum ice levels at Mount Waesche relative to the maximum ice extent in the Ross Sea. The glacial geologic evidence, coupled with the ice sheet model, indicates that the contribution of the Ross Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to Holocene sea level rise was only about 3 meters. These results eliminate West Antarctic ice as the principle source of the large meltwater pulse during the early Holocene.
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