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Science 2 December 1994:
Vol. 266. no. 5190, pp. 1542 - 1544
DOI: 10.1126/science.266.5190.1542
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Articles

Meltwater Input to the Southern Ocean During the Last Glacial Maximum

Aldo Shemesh 1, Lloyd H. Burckle 2, and James D. Hays 2

1 Department of Environmental Sciences and Energy Research, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel
2 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA.

Three records of oxygen isotopes in biogenic silica from deep-sea sediment cores from the Atlantic and Indian sectors of the Southern Ocean reveal the presence of isotopically depleted diatomaceous opal in sediment from the last glacial maximum. This depletion is attributed to the presence of lids of meltwater that mixed with surface water along certain trajectories in the Southern Ocean. An increase in the drainage from Antarctica or extensive northward transport of icebergs are among the main mechanisms that could have produced the increase in meltwater input to the glacial Southern Ocean. Similar isotopic trends were observed in older climatic cycles at the same cores.

Submitted on June 30, 1994
Accepted on September 26, 1994


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Southern Hemisphere Water Mass Conversion Linked with North Atlantic Climate Variability.
K. Pahnke and R. Zahn (2005)
Science 307, 1741-1746
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Bi-polar ocean linkages: evidence from late-Holocene Antarctic marine and Greenland ice-core records.
E. W. Domack and P. A. Mayewski (1999)
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