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Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions
Published on: March 31, 2023
Thermohaline circulation crisis and impacts during the mid-Pleistocene transition
Leopoldo D Pena1, Steven L Goldstein2
1Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, 61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964, USA. leopoldo@ldeo.columbia.edu.
Abstract:
The mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT) marked a fundamental change in glacial-interglacial periodicity, when it increased from ~41-thousand-year to 100-thousand-year cycles and developed higher-amplitude climate variability without substantial changes in the Milankovitch forcing. Here, we document, by using Nd isotopes, a major disruption of the ocean thermohaline circulation (THC) system during the MPT between marine isotope stages (MISs) 25 and 21 at ~950 to 860 thousand years ago, which effectively marks the first 100-thousand-year cycle, including an exceptional weakening through a critical interglacial (MIS 23) at ~900 thousand years ago. Its recovery into the post-MPT 100-thousand-year world is characterized by continued weak glacial THC. The MPT ocean circulation crisis facilitated the coeval drawdown of atmospheric CO2 and high-latitude ice sheet growth, generating the conditions that stabilized 100-thousand-year cycles.
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