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Submitted on January 22, 2001
Accepted on May 25, 2001
Collapse of the California Current During Glacial Maxima Linked to Climate Change on Land
T. D. Herbert 1,J. D. Schuffert 1,D. Andreasen 2,L. Heusser 3,M. Lyle 4,A. Mix 5,A. C. Ravelo 2,L. D. Stott 6,J. C. Herguera 7
1 Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA. 2 University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. 3 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY 10964, USA. 4 Center for Geophysical Investigation of the Shallow Subsurface, Boise State University, Boise, ID 83725, USA. 5 Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA. 6 University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. 7 Centro de Investigació
n Cientí
fica y de Educació
n Superior de Ensenada, Ensenada 22860, Mexico.
Time series of alkenone unsaturation index gathered along the California margin reveal large (4° to 8°C) glacial-interglacial changes in sea surface temperature (SST) over the last 550,000 years. Interglacial times with SST equal to or exceeding that of the Holocene contain peak abundances in the pollen of redwood, the distinctive component of the temperate rainforest of the northwest coast of California. Sea surface temperature warmed in advance of deglaciation by 10,000 to 15,000 years at each of the past five glacial maxima in the region now dominated by the California Current. SST did not rise in advance of deglaciation south of the modern California Current front. Glacial warming along the California margin therefore is a regional signal of the dramatic weakening of the California Current during times when large ice sheets reorganized wind systems over the North Pacific. Both the timing and magnitude of the SST estimates suggest that the Devils Hole (Nevada) calcite record represents regional, but not global, paleotemperatures, and hence does not pose a fundamental challenge to the orbital ("Milankovitch") theory of the Ice Ages.
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