| Volumes and Issues Contents of Issue 2 |
www.clim-past-discuss.net/4/375/2008/
© Author(s) 2008. This work is distributed
under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Millennial-scale climatic variability between 340 000 and 270 000 years ago in SW Europe: evidence from a NW Iberian margin pollen sequence
1EPHE, UMR-CNRS 5805, EPOC, Université Bordeaux 1, Avenue des Facultés, 33405 Talence, France
2Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA
3Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, LSCE-Vallée, Bât. 12, avenue de la Terrasse, F-91198 Gif-Sur-Yvette cedex, France
Abstract. We present a new high-resolution marine pollen record from NW Iberian margin sediments (core MD03-2697) covering the interval between 340 000 and 270 000 years ago a time period centred on Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 9 and characterised by particular baseline climate states. This study enables to document the vegetation changes in north-western Iberian Peninsula and therefore the terrestrial climatic variability at orbital and in particular at millennial scales during MIS 9, directly on a marine stratigraphy. Suborbital vegetation changes in NW Iberia in response to cool/cold events are detected throughout the studied interval even during MIS 9e ice volume minimum. However, they appears more frequent and of higher amplitude during the 30 000 years following the MIS 9e interglacial period and during the MIS 9a-8 transition which correspond to intervals of an intermediate to high ice volume and mainly periods of ice growth. Each suborbital cold event detected in NW Iberia has a counterpart in the southern Iberian margin SST record. High to moderate amplitude cold episodes detected on land and in the ocean appears related to changes in deep water circulation and likely to iceberg discharges at least during MIS 9d, the mid-MIS 9c cold event and MIS 9b. This work provides therefore additional evidence of a pervasive millennial-scale climatic variability in the North Atlantic borderlands throughout past climatic cycles of the Late Pleistocene, regardless of glacial state. However, ice volume might have an indirect influence on the amplitude of the millennial climatic changes in southern Europe.
Discussion Paper (PDF, 1789 KB) Interactive Discussion (Final Response, 3 Comments)
Citation: Desprat, S., Sánchez Goñi, M. F., Duprat, J., Cortijo, E., and McManus, J. F.: Millennial-scale climatic variability between 340 000 and 270 000 years ago in SW Europe: evidence from a NW Iberian margin pollen sequence, Clim. Past Discuss., 4, 375-414, 2008. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager
