Evidence for massive methane hydrate destabilization during the penultimate interglacial warming

Abstract

The stability of widespread methane hydrates in shallow subsurface sediments of the marine continental margins is sensitive to temperature increases experienced by upper intermediate waters. Destabilization of methane hydrates and ensuing release of methane would produce climatic feedbacks amplifying and accelerating global warming. Hence, improved assessment of ongoing intermediate water warming is crucially important, especially that resulting from a weakening of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Our study provides an independent paleoclimatic perspective by reconstructing the thermal structure and imprint of methane oxidation throughout a water column of 1,300 m. We studied a sediment sequence from the eastern equatorial Atlantic (Gulf of Guinea), a region containing abundant shallow subsurface methane hydrates. We focused on the early part of the penultimate interglacial and present a hitherto undocumented and remarkably large intermediate water warming of 6.8 °C in response to a brief episode of meltwater-induced, modest AMOC weakening centered at 126,000 to 125,000 y ago. The warming of intermediate waters to 14 °C significantly exceeds the stability field of methane hydrates. In conjunction with this warming, our study reveals an anomalously low δ13C spike throughout the entire water column, recorded as primary signatures in single and pooled shells of multitaxa foraminifers. This extremely negative δ13C excursion was almost certainly the result of massive destabilization of methane hydrates. This study documents and connects a sequence of climatic events and climatic feedback processes associated with and triggered by the penultimate climate warming that can serve as a paleoanalog for modern ongoing warming.