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Published May 8, 2012 | Published + Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

Global climate evolution during the last deglaciation

Abstract

Deciphering the evolution of global climate from the end of the Last Glacial Maximum approximately 19 ka to the early Holocene 11 ka presents an outstanding opportunity for understanding the transient response of Earth's climate system to external and internal forcings. During this interval of global warming, the decay of ice sheets caused global mean sea level to rise by approximately 80 m; terrestrial and marine ecosystems experienced large disturbances and range shifts; perturbations to the carbon cycle resulted in a net release of the greenhouse gases CO_2 and CH_4 to the atmosphere; and changes in atmosphere and ocean circulation affected the global distribution and fluxes of water and heat. Here we summarize a major effort by the paleoclimate research community to characterize these changes through the development of well-dated, high-resolution records of the deep and intermediate ocean as well as surface climate. Our synthesis indicates that the superposition of two modes explains much of the variability in regional and global climate during the last deglaciation, with a strong association between the first mode and variations in greenhouse gases, and between the second mode and variations in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.

Additional Information

© 2012 National Academy of Sciences. Edited by Mark H. Thiemens, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, and approved January 4, 2012 (received for review October 10, 2011). Published online before print February 13, 2012. We thank the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Paleoclimatology program for data archiving, and the many scientists who generously contributed datasets used in our analyses. We also thank the National Science Foundation Paleoclimate Program and the Past Global Changes program for supporting the workshops that led to this synthesis. Author contributions: P.U.C., J.D.S., Z.L., and B.L.O.-B. designed research; P.U.C., J.D.S., and J.X.M. performed research; P.U.C., J.D.S., A.E.C., H.C., Z.L., B.L.O.-B., J.F.A., J.L.B., J.C., S.M.C., W.B.C., B.P.F., F.H., T.C.J., J.L.-S., V.M., J.M., P.I.M., and J.W.W. analyzed data; and P.U.C., J.D.S., P.A.B., P.J.B., S.B., E.B., A.E.C., D.S.K., T.M.M., A.C.M., C.M., K.P., J.M.R., and C.W. wrote the paper.

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Published - Clark2012p18363P_Natl_Acad_Sci_Usa.pdf

Supplemental Material - Appendix.pdf

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Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 17, 2023