Antarctic icebergs reorganize ocean circulation during Pleistocene glacials

Patagonian dust, Agulhas Current, and Antarctic ice-rafted debris contributions to the South Atlantic Ocean over the past 150,000 years

Disentangling inputs of aeolian dust, ice-rafted debris (IRD), and eroded continental detritus delivered by ocean currents to marine sediments provide important insights into Earth System processes and climate. This study uses Sr-Nd-Pb isotope ratios of the continent-derived (lithogenic) fraction in deep-sea core TN057-6 from the subantarctic Southern Ocean southwest of Africa over the past 150,000 y to identify source regions and quantify their relative contributions and fluxes utilizing a mixing model set in a Bayesian framework. The data are compared with proxies from parallel core Ocean Drilling Program Site 1090 and newly presented data from potential South America aeolian dust source areas (PSAs), allowing for an integrated investigation into atmospheric, oceanic, and cryospheric dynamics. PSA inputs varied on glacial/interglacial timescales, with southern South American sources dominating up to 88% of the lithogenic fraction (mainly Patagonia, which provided up to 68%) during cold periods, while southern African sources were more important during interglacials. During the warmer Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 of the last glacial period, lithogenic fluxes were twice that of colder MIS2 and MIS4 at times, and showed unique isotope ratios best explained by Antarctic-derived IRD, likely from the Weddell Sea. The IRD intrusions contributed up to 41% at times and followed Antarctic millennial warming events that raised temperatures, causing instability of icesheet margins. High IRD was synchronous with increased bioavailable iron, nutrient utilization, high biological productivity, and decreased atmospheric CO2. Overall, TN057-6 sediments record systematic Southern Hemisphere climate shifts and cryospheric changes that impacted biogeochemical cycling on both glacial/interglacial and subglacial timescales.

Global and regional temperature change over the past 4.5 million years

Much of our understanding of Cenozoic climate is based on the record of δ18O measured in benthic foraminifera. However, this measurement reflects a combined signal of global temperature and sea level, thus preventing a clear understanding of the interactions and feedbacks of the climate system in causing global temperature change. Our new reconstruction of temperature change over the past 4.5 million years includes two phases of long-term cooling, with the second phase of accelerated cooling during the Middle Pleistocene Transition (1.5 to 0.9 million years ago) being accompanied by a transition from dominant 41,000-year low-amplitude periodicity to dominant 100,000-year high-amplitude periodicity. Changes in the rates of long-term cooling and variability are consistent with changes in the carbon cycle driven initially by geologic processes, followed by additional changes in the Southern Ocean carbon cycle.

Middle Pleistocene re-organization of Australian Monsoon

The sensitivity of the Australian Monsoon to changing climate boundary conditions remains controversial due to limited understanding of forcing processes and past variability. Here, we reconstruct austral summer monsoonal discharge and wind-driven winter productivity across the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT) in a sediment sequence drilled off NW Australia. We show that monsoonal precipitation and runoff primarily responded to precessional insolation forcing until ~0.95 Ma, but exhibited heightened sensitivity to ice volume and pCO₂ related feedbacks following intensification of glacial-interglacial cycles. Our records further suggest that summer monsoon variability at the precessional band was closely tied to the thermal evolution of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool and strength of the Walker circulation over the past ~1.6 Myr. By contrast, productivity proxy records consistently tracked glacial-interglacial variability, reflecting changing rhythms in polar ice fluctuations and Hadley circulation strength. We conclude that the Australian Monsoon underwent a major re-organization across the MPT and that extratropical feedbacks were instrumental in driving short- and long-term variability.

Ocean currents break up a tabular iceberg

In December 2020, giant tabular iceberg A68a (surface area 3900 km²) broke up in open ocean much deeper than its keel, indicating that the breakage was not immediately caused by collision with the seafloor. Giant icebergs with lengths exceeding 18.5 km account for most of the calved ice mass from the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Upon calving, they drift away and transport freshwater into the Southern Ocean, modifying ocean circulation, disrupting sea ice and the marine biosphere, and potentially triggering changes in climate. Here, we demonstrate that the A68a breakup event may have been triggered by ocean-current shear, a new breakup mechanism not previously reported. We also introduce methods to represent giant icebergs within climate models that currently do not have any representation of them. These methods open opportunities to explore the interactions between icebergs and other components of the climate system and will improve the fidelity of global climate simulations.

Sunlight-driven nitrate loss records Antarctic surface mass balance

Standard proxies for reconstructing surface mass balance (SMB) in Antarctic ice cores are often inaccurate or coarsely resolved when applied to more complicated environments away from dome summits. Here, we propose an alternative SMB proxy based on photolytic fractionation of nitrogen isotopes in nitrate observed at 114 sites throughout East Antarctica. Applying this proxy approach to nitrate in a shallow core drilled at a moderate SMB site (Aurora Basin North), we reconstruct 700 years of SMB changes that agree well with changes estimated from ice core density and upstream surface topography. For the under-sampled transition zones between dome summits and the coast, we show that this proxy can provide past and present SMB values that reflect the immediate local environment and are derived independently from existing techniques.

Episodes of Early Pleistocene West Antarctic Ice Sheet Retreat Recorded by Iceberg Alley Sediments

Ice loss in the Southern Hemisphere has been greatest over the past 30 years in West Antarctica. The high sensitivity of this region to climate change has motivated geologists to examine marine sedimentary records for evidence of past episodes of West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) instability. Sediments accumulating in the Scotia Sea are useful to examine for this purpose because they receive iceberg-rafted debris (IBRD) sourced from the Pacific- and Atlantic-facing sectors of West Antarctica. Here we report on the sedimentology and provenance of the oldest of three cm-scale coarse-grained layers recovered from this sea at International Ocean Discovery Program Site U1538. These layers are preserved in opal-rich sediments deposited ∼1.2 Ma during a relatively warm regional climate. Our microCT-based analysis of the layer's in-situ fabric confirms its ice-rafted origin. We further infer that it is the product of an intense but short-lived episode of IBRD deposition. Based on the petrography of its sand fraction and the Phanerozoic ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages of hornblende and mica it contains, we conclude that the IBRD it contains was likely sourced from the Weddell Sea and/or Amundsen Sea embayment(s) of West Antarctica. We attribute the high concentrations of IBRD in these layers to "dirty" icebergs calved from the WAIS following its retreat inland from its modern grounding line. These layers also sit at the top of a ∼366-m thick Pliocene and early Pleistocene sequence that is much more dropstone-rich than its overlying sediments. We speculate this fact may reflect that WAIS mass-balance was highly dynamic during the ∼41-kyr (inter)glacial world.

Iceberg drift and melting rates in the northwestern Weddell Sea, Antarctica: Novel automated regional estimates through machine learning

Global warming and its consequences on polar regions have been thoroughly discussed in recent times. One of those consequences is the freshwater flux and the associated cooling and freshening that result from iceberg melting. Despite the potential impact, large uncertainties exist resulting mostly from the complexity to follow icebergs from space, which make the few existing estimates essentially model-based. This study takes advantage of state-of-art machine learning methods to present novel prevalent trajectories and potential freshwater input from 450 icebergs ranging from 1 to 2765 km2 across the northwestern Weddell Sea, Antarctica. The main results highlight the predominance of a northward flux and the entrance of icebergs up to 10 km2 into Bransfield Strait associated with the main current systems along the Antarctic Peninsula. The present analysis on such a large number of icebergs unveils an average drift speed of 3.4 ± 2.7 km day-1 and an average disintegration rate of ~62% per year, representing an integrated potential regional freshwater input of 133.62 Gt yr-1. Altogether, this study adds new knowledge to the complex problem of autonomous applications for iceberg detection and tracking, further exploring such methods on a very dynamic region of singular importance for the ocean and climate studies.

Indo-Pacific Walker circulation drove Pleistocene African aridification

Today, the eastern African hydroclimate is tightly linked to fluctuations in the zonal atmospheric Walker circulation^1,2. A growing body of evidence indicates that this circulation shaped hydroclimatic conditions in the Indian Ocean region also on much longer, glacial-interglacial timescales^3-5, following the development of Pacific Walker circulation around 2.2-2.0 million years ago (Ma)^6,7. However, continuous long-term records to determine the timing and mechanisms of Pacific-influenced climate transitions in the Indian Ocean have been unavailable. Here we present a seven-million-year-long record of wind-driven circulation of the tropical Indian Ocean, as recorded in Mozambique Channel Throughflow (MCT) flow-speed variations. We show that the MCT flow speed was relatively weak and steady until 2.1 ± 0.1 Ma, when it began to increase, coincident with the intensification of the Pacific Walker circulation^6,7. Strong increases during glacial periods, which reached maxima after the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (0.9-0.64 Ma; ref. ⁸), were punctuated by weak flow speeds during interglacial periods. We provide a mechanism explaining that increasing MCT flow speeds reflect synchronous development of the Indo-Pacific Walker cells that promote aridification in Africa. Our results suggest that after about 2.1 Ma, the increasing aridification is punctuated by pronounced humid interglacial periods. This record will facilitate testing of hypotheses of climate-environmental drivers for hominin evolution and dispersal.