Ice core evidence for a very tight link between North Atlantic and east Asian glacial climate

Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 34, L03706, doi:10.1029/2006GL027876, 2007

U. Ruth and S. Kipfstuhl
Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Bremerhaven, Germany.
M. Bigler
Climate and Environmental Physics, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. Now at Ice and Climate Research, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
R. Röthlisberger
Climate and Environmental Physics, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. Now at British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Cambridge, UK.
M.-L. Siggaard-Andersen, S.J. Johnsen and J.P. Steffensen
Ice and Climate, The Niels Bohr Institute, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
K. Goto-Azuma
National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, Japan.
M.E. Hansson
Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
H. Lu
School of Geographical and Oceanographical Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.


ABSTRACT.
Corresponding millennial-scale climate changes have been reported from the North Atlantic region and from east Asia for the last glacial period on independent timescales only. To assess their degree of synchrony we suggest interpreting Greenland ice core dust parameters as proxies for the east Asian monsoon systems. This allows comparing North Atlantic and east Asian climate on the same timescale in high resolution ice core data without relative dating uncertainties. We find that during Dansgaard-Oeschger events North Atlantic region temperature and east Asian storminess were tightly coupled and changed synchronously within 5-10 years with no systematic lead or lag, thus providing instantaneous climatic feedback. The tight link between North Atlantic and east Asian glacial climate could have amplified changes in the northern polar cell to larger scales. We further find evidence for an early onset of a Younger Dryas-like event in continental Asia, which gives evidence for heterogeneous climate change within east Asia during the last deglaciation.