Glacial Surface Temperatures of the Southeast Atlantic Ocean
Julian P. Sachs,1*
Robert F. Anderson,2
Scott J. Lehman3
A detailed record of sea surface temperature from
sediments of the Cape Basin in the subtropical South Atlantic indicates a previously undocumented progression of marine climate change between
41 and 18 thousand years before the present (ky B.P.), during the last
glacial period. Whereas marine records typically indicate a long-term
cooling into the Last Glacial Maximum (around 21 ky B.P.) consistent
with gradually increasing global ice volume, the Cape Basin record
documents an interval of substantial temperate ocean warming from 41 to
25 ky B.P. The pattern is similar to that expected in response to
changes in insolation owing to variations in Earth's tilt.
1 Department of Earth, Atmospheric and
Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room E34-254, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
2 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Post Office Box
1000, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA.
3 Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Campus
Box 450, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
1 Department of Earth, Atmospheric and
Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room E34-254, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
2 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Post Office Box
1000, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA.
3 Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Campus
Box 450, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
jsachs{at}mit.edu
