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Published Online June 22, 2006
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1123296

Research Articles

Submitted on December 1, 2005
Accepted on June 9, 2006

Plio-Pleistocene Ice Volume, Antarctic Climate, and the Global {delta}18O Record

M. E. Raymo 1*, L. E. Lisiecki 1, Kerim H. Nisancioglu 2

1 Department of Earth Science, Boston University, 685 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215, USA.
2 Palaeoclimates, Bjerknes Center for Climate Research, Allegaten 55, Bergen 5007, Norway.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
M. E. Raymo , E-mail: raymo{at}bu.edu

We propose that from ~3 to 1 Ma ice volume changes occurred in both the northern and southern hemispheres, each controlled by local summer insolation. Because Earth's orbital precession is out of phase between hemispheres, 23 kyr changes in ice volume in each hemisphere cancel in globally integrated proxies such as ocean {delta}18O or sea level leaving the in-phase obliquity (41 kyr) component of insolation to dominate the record. Only a modest ice mass change in Antarctica is required to "cancel" a much larger northern ice volume signal. At the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), we propose that marine-based ice sheet margins replaced terrestrial ice margins around the perimeter of East Antarctica resulting in a shift to "in-phase" behavior of northern and southern ice sheets as well as the strengthening of 23 kyr cyclicity in the marine {delta}18O record.


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)