Holocene sea ice variability driven by wind and polynya efficiency in the Ross Sea

Mezgec, Karin; Stenni, Barbara; Crosta, Xavier; Masson‐Delmotte, Valérie; Baroni, Carlo; Braida, Martina; Ciardini, Virginia; Colizza, Ester; Melis, Romana; Salvatore, María Cristina; Severi, Mirko; Scarchilli, Claudio; Traversi, Rita; Udisti, Roberto; Frezzotti, Màssimo

doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01455-x

Cited by 88 publications

(132 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Southern Ocean cooling is expected to have further enhanced sea ice cover in the Southern Ocean (Park & Latif, ; Zhang, Delworth, & Jia, ). This is in accordance with two records displaying increased sea ice in the western Ross Sea at a similar timing (between 1,250 and 650 cal yr BP) to the cooling (Figure g; Mezgec et al, ). Late Holocene sea‐ice increases are also observed to the west of the Ross Sea (Denis et al, ), to the west of the West Antarctic Peninsula (Etourneau et al, ), and in the Eastern Ross Sea (Mayewski et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Centennial‐Scale SE Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Variability Over the Past 2,300 Years

Collins

Lamy

Kaiser

et al. 2019

Paleoceanog and Paleoclimatol

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Detailed temperature reconstructions over the past 2,000 years are important for contextualizing modern climate change. The midlatitude SE Pacific is a key region in this regard in terms of understanding the climatic linkages between the tropics and southern high latitudes. Multicentennial timescale temperature variability remains, however, poorly understood, due to a lack of long, high‐temporal‐resolution temperature records from this region and from the southern high latitudes in general. We present a unique alkenone sea surface temperature (SST) record from 44°S on the southern Chilean margin in the SE Pacific spanning the last 2,300 years at decadal resolution. The record displays relatively large changes including a cooling transition from 14 to 12.5 °C between 1,100 and 600 cal yr BP, in line with other Chile margin SST records and coeval with Antarctic cooling. This cooling is attributable to reduced Southern Ocean deep convection, driven by a late Holocene sea‐ice increase in the Weddell Sea associated with increased El‐Niño Southern Oscillation variability. Superimposed on the late Holocene cooling, we observe multicentennial timescale SST variability, including relatively cool SSTs (12.5 °C) from 950 to 500 cal yr BP, corresponding to the Medieval Climate Anomaly, and warmer SSTs (13 °C) from 500 to 200 cal yr BP, corresponding to the Little Ice Age. These oscillations may reflect either multicentennial internal variability of the Southern Ocean deep convection and/or multicentennial variability in the phasing of El‐Niño Southern Oscillation and Southern Annular Mode events.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Centennial‐Scale SE Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Variability Over the Past 2,300 Years

Collins

Lamy

Kaiser

et al. 2019

Paleoceanog and Paleoclimatol

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“…Mezgec et al . () use diatom data from marine cores and sea salt and isotopic data from ice cores to document the expansion and contraction of sea ice in the coastal zone (both land‐fast ice and multiyear sea ice) versus the open ocean (pack ice) in the western Ross Sea. They note millennial cycles in sea ice since ~7,000 yr BP that are opposing between coastal and open ocean sites, with the iciest coastal conditions occurring over the last 1,000 yr, and relate changes in the abundance of elephant seals and other species to these climate cycles.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, Mezgec et al . ). Together, these lines of evidence suggest that land‐fast and multiyear sea ice has become much more pronounced in coastal settings over the last millennium.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Mummified and skeletal southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) from the Victoria Land Coast, Ross Sea, Antarctica

Koch

Hall

Bruyn

et al. 2019

Marine Mammal Science

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We report on an accumulation of mummified southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) from Inexpressible Island on the Victoria Land Coast (VLC), western Ross Sea, Antarctica. This accumulation is unusual, as elephant seals typically breed and molt on sub-Antarctic islands further north and do not currently occupy the VLC. Prior ancient DNA analyses revealed that these seals were part of a large, Antarctic breeding population that crashed~1,000 yr ago. Radiocarbon dates for Inexpressible Island mummies range from 380 to 3,270 yr before present, too old to have been created by Scott's Northern Party in 1912 and varying too widely in age to represent a catastrophic death assemblage. Skeletal measurements reveal that most Inexpressible Island mummies are adult or subadult males. The presence of male elephant seals on Inexpressible Island until several hundred years ago suggests that, at a minimum, it served as a haul-out site for the large Antarctic population and may have hosted a breeding colony. The conditions that allowed this Antarctic population to use the Ross Sea, the factors spurring its decline, and the implications for the adaptability and sensitivity of the species to environmental change all merit further study.

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“…Here several key components of the Antarctic system are found in close correspondence determining complex dynamics (Bertler et al, 2018;Mezgec et al, 2017). Talos Dome (TD) is a peripheral ice dome at the edge of EAIS, near Victoria Land, in the western region of the Ross Sea area.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regionalization of the Atmospheric Dust Cycle on the Periphery of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet Since the Last Glacial Maximum

Baccolo

Delmonte

Albani

et al. 2018

Geochem Geophys Geosyst

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Ice cores from inner East Antarctica provided some of the longest and most detailed climatic reconstructions and allowed understanding the relationships between atmospheric mineral dust and climate. In this work we present synchrotron radiation X‐ray Fluorescence geochemical data of dust from the TALDICE ice core drilled at Talos Dome, a peripheral ice dome of East Antarctica (Western Ross Sea). Results highlight a dominant southern South American origin for dust at TALDICE during the Last Glacial Maximum, similarly to other sites located further inland onto the polar plateau. On the contrary, a different scenario concerns Talos Dome during the Holocene if it is compared to more inner sites. The tight connection between high southern latitudes and Antarctica that characterizes cold climate stages becomes weaker since the onset of the last climatic transition and throughout the Holocene. The net effect of this process at Talos Dome is a modification of the atmospheric and environmental settings, owing to local Antarctic sources of Victoria Land to gain importance and become the dominant ones. At the same time in inner East Antarctica the provenance of dust remains remote also during Holocene, revealing an evolution of the homogeneous scenario observed in glacial periods. The enhanced sensitivity of peripheral ice sheet sites to local dust sources makes Talos Dome an ideal site to assess the climatic and atmospheric changes of the peripheral sectors of East Antarctica during the current interglacial period.

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Holocene sea ice variability driven by wind and polynya efficiency in the Ross Sea

Cited by 88 publications

References 66 publications

Centennial‐Scale SE Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Variability Over the Past 2,300 Years

Centennial‐Scale SE Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Variability Over the Past 2,300 Years

Mummified and skeletal southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) from the Victoria Land Coast, Ross Sea, Antarctica

Regionalization of the Atmospheric Dust Cycle on the Periphery of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet Since the Last Glacial Maximum

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