The response of the tropical climate in the Indian Ocean realm to abrupt climate change events in the North Atlantic Ocean is contentious. Repositioning of the intertropical convergence zone is thought to have been responsible for changes in tropical hydroclimate during North Atlantic cold spells 1-5 , but the dearth of high-resolution records outside the monsoon realm in the Indian Ocean precludes a full understanding of this remote relationship and its underlying mechanisms. Here we show that slowdowns of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during Heinrich stadials and the Younger Dryas stadial affected the tropical Indian Ocean hydroclimate through changes to the Hadley circulation including a southward shift in the rising branch (the intertropical convergence zone) and an overall weakening over the southern Indian Ocean. Our results are based on new, high-resolution sea surface temperature and seawater oxygen isotope records of well dated sedimentary archives from the tropical eastern Indian Ocean for the past 45,000 years, combined with climate model simulations of Atlantic circulation slowdown under Marine Isotope Stages 2 and 3 boundary conditions. Similar conditions in the east and west of the basin rule out a zonal dipole structure as the dominant forcing of the tropical Indian Ocean hydroclimate of millennial-scale events. Results from our simulations and proxy data suggest dry conditions in the northern Indian Ocean realm and wet and warm conditions in the southern realm during North Atlantic cold spells.In the North Atlantic, the most recent glacial and deglacial periods are characterized by a series of abrupt and severe cold snaps of millennial duration associated with either iceberg instabilities and surges (Heinrich events) or freshwater input from the Arctic Ocean 6 (the Younger Dryas). These abrupt events are of particular interest because they were rapidly communicated through the ocean by a slowdown, or potentially a shutdown, of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation 7 (AMOC) and through the atmospheric circulation 8 causing climate anomalies worldwide. Climate archives document a significant tropical hydrologic response to these events. Dry Younger Dryas and Heinrich stadials have been reported from various marine and terrestrial archives across the tropical Indian Ocean 4,9-14 .However, a few records suggest wet Younger Dryas or Heinrich stadials over northeast Australia 15 , southern Indonesia 5,16 and southeast Africa 12,17 . Although there seems to be strong evidence that the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) moved southwards in the tropical Atlantic 2 , a wide range of mechanisms have been offered to explain the connection between the cooling of the North Atlantic and tropical Indian Ocean hydroclimates: a weakening of the rainfall system in response to regional sea surface cooling 13,14 ; and changes in the monsoon intensity 4,10,16 associated with a southward shift in the mean 1 or winter 4,5,15 position of the ITCZ or in the position of oceanic fronts 18 .How...

International audienceThe Southern Ocean plays a prominent role in the Earth’s climate and carbon cycle. Changes in the Southern Ocean circulation may have regulated the release of CO₂ to the atmosphere from a deep-ocean reservoir during the last deglaciation. However, the path and exact timing of this deglacial CO₂ release are still under debate. Here we present measurements of deglacial surface reservoir ¹⁴C age changes in the eastern Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean, obtained by ¹⁴C dating of tephra deposited over the marine and terrestrial regions. These results, along with records of foraminifera benthic–planktic ¹⁴C age and δ¹³C difference, provide evidence for three periods of enhanced upwelling in the Southern Ocean during the last deglaciation, supporting the hypothesis that Southern Ocean upwelling contributed to the deglacial rise in atmospheric CO₂. These independently dated marine records suggest synchronous changes in the Southern Ocean circulation and Antarctic climate during the last deglaciation

[1] Nitrogen isotopes are an important tool for evaluating past biogeochemical cycling from the paleoceanographic record. However, bulk sedimentary nitrogen isotope ratios, which can be determined routinely and at minimal cost, may be altered during burial and early sedimentary diagenesis, particularly outside of continental margin settings. The causes and detailed mechanisms of isotopic alteration are still under investigation. Case studies of the Mediterranean and South China Seas underscore the complexities of investigating isotopic alteration. In an effort to evaluate the evidence for alteration of the sedimentary N isotopic signal and try to quantify the net effect, we have compiled and compared data demonstrating alteration from the published literature. A >100 point comparison of sediment trap and surface sedimentary nitrogen isotope values demonstrates that, at sites located off of the continental margins, an increase in sediment 15 N/ 14 N occurs during early burial, likely at the seafloor. The extent of isotopic alteration appears to be a function of water depth. Depth-related differences in oxygen exposure time at the seafloor are likely the dominant control on the extent of N isotopic alteration. Moreover, the compiled data suggest that the degree of alteration is likely to be uniform through time at most sites so that bulk sedimentary isotope records likely provide a good means for evaluating relative changes in the global N cycle.Citation: Robinson, R. S., et al. (2012), A review of nitrogen isotopic alteration in marine sediments, Paleoceanography, 27, PA4203,

During the last deglaciation, the opposing patterns of atmospheric CO2 and radiocarbon activities (Δ14C) suggest the release of 14C-depleted CO2 from old carbon reservoirs. Although evidences point to the deep Pacific as a major reservoir of this 14C-depleted carbon, its extent and evolution still need to be constrained. Here we use sediment cores retrieved along a South Pacific transect to reconstruct the spatio-temporal evolution of Δ14C over the last 30,000 years. In ∼2,500–3,600 m water depth, we find 14C-depleted deep waters with a maximum glacial offset to atmospheric 14C (ΔΔ14C=−1,000‰). Using a box model, we test the hypothesis that these low values might have been caused by an interaction of aging and hydrothermal CO2 influx. We observe a rejuvenation of circumpolar deep waters synchronous and potentially contributing to the initial deglacial rise in atmospheric CO2. These findings constrain parts of the glacial carbon pool to the deep South Pacific.

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Late twentieth-century instrumental records reveal a persistent southward shift of the Southern Westerly Winds during austral summer and autumn associated with a positive trend of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and contemporaneous with glacial recession, steady increases in atmospheric temperatures and CO 2 concentrations at a global scale. However, despite the clear importance of the SAM in the modern/future climate, very little is known regarding its behaviour during pre-Industrial times. Here we present a stratigraphic record from Lago Cipreses (51°S), southwestern Patagonia, that reveals recurrent B200-year long dry/warm phases over the last three millennia, which we interpret as positive SAM-like states. These correspond in timing with the Industrial revolution, the Mediaeval Climate Anomaly, the Roman and Late Bronze Age Warm Periods and alternate with cold/wet multicentennial phases in European palaeoclimate records. We conclude that SAM-like changes at centennial timescales in southwestern Patagonia represent in-phase interhemispheric coupling of palaeoclimate over the last 3,000 years through atmospheric teleconnections.

The Southern Westerly Winds (SWW) are the surface expression of geostrophic winds that encircle the southern mid-latitudes. In conjunction with the Southern Ocean, they establish a coupled system that not only controls climate in the southern third of the world, but is also closely connected to the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and CO2 degassing from the deep ocean. Paradoxically, little is known about their behavior since the last ice age and relationships with mid-latitude glacier history and tropical climate variability. Here we present a lake sediment record from Chilean Patagonia (51°S) that reveals fluctuations of the low-level SWW at mid-latitudes, including strong westerlies during the Antarctic Cold Reversal, anomalously low intensity during the early Holocene, which was unfavorable for glacier growth, and strong SWW since ~7.5 ka. We detect nine positive Southern Annular Mode-like events at centennial timescale since ~5.8 ka that alternate with cold/wet intervals favorable for glacier expansions (Neoglaciations) in southern Patagonia. The correspondence of key features of mid-latitude atmospheric circulation with shifts in tropical climate since ~10 ka suggests that coherent climatic shifts in these regions have driven climate change in vast sectors of the Southern Hemisphere at centennial and millennial timescales.

The Australian-Indonesian monsoon is an important component of the climate system in the tropical Indo-Pacific region 1 . However, its past variability, relation with northern and southern high-latitude climate and connection to the other Asian monsoon systems are poorly understood. Here we present high-resolution records of monsoon-controlled austral winter upwelling during the past 22,000 years, based on planktic foraminiferal oxygen isotopes and faunal composition in a sedimentary archive collected offshore southern Java. We show that glacial-interglacial variations in the Australian-Indonesian winter monsoon were in phase with the Indian summer monsoon system, consistent with their modern linkage through cross-equatorial surface winds. Likewise, millennial-scale variability of upwelling shares similar sign and timing with upwelling variability in the Arabian Sea. On the basis of element composition and grain-size distribution as precipitation-sensitive proxies in the same archive, we infer that (austral) summer monsoon rainfall was highest during the Bølling-Allerød period and the past 2,500 years. Our results indicate drier conditions during Heinrich Stadial 1 due to a southward shift of summer rainfall and a relatively weak Hadley cell south of the Equator. We suggest that the Australian-Indonesian summer and winter monsoon variability were closely linked to summer insolation and abrupt climate changes in the northern hemisphere.The seasonality of the global monsoon is of central importance to the global hydrologic cycle and its environmental influence on human societies. Palaeoclimate reconstructions generally agree that the strengths of the East Asian monsoon and the Indian monsoon are tightly coupled to the Northern Hemisphere climate through zonal migrations of the monsoon convection centres, also interpreted as Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) migration 2-6 . The mechanism of the Australian-Indonesian monsoon (AIM) in both time and space is, however, poorly understood [7][8][9][10][11][12] . Australian records 9-11 indicate wetter-than-today conditions during the early and middle Holocene. These changes have been explained through a Northern Hemisphere insolation control on the AIM (refs 8, 10), regional sea-surface-temperature (SST) feedback 7 or human impact on the late Holocene vegetation cover 8 , countering or even cancelling the response of the AIM to local insolation. Deglacial sea-level rise and its effect on exposed land surface may also be an important influence on southeast Indonesian rainfall 12,13 . Moreover, many records suggest that the Asian monsoons, including the AIM, changed in association with North Atlantic deglacial climate