Impact of suborbital climate changes in the North Atlantic on ice sheet dynamics at the Mid‐Pleistocene Transition

Abstract

Early and Mid‐Pleistocene climate, ocean hydrography and ice sheet dynamics have been reconstructed using a high‐resolution data set (planktonic and benthicδ18O time series, faunal‐based sea surface temperature (SST) reconstructions and ice‐rafted debris (IRD)) record from a high‐deposition‐rate sedimentary succession recovered at the Gardar Drift formation in the subpolar North Atlantic (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Leg 306, Site U1314). Our sedimentary record spans from late in Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 31 to MIS 19 (1069–779 ka). Different trends of the benthic and planktonic oxygen isotopes, SST and IRD records before and after MIS 25 (∼940 ka) evidence the large increase in Northern Hemisphere ice‐volume, linked to the cyclicity change from the 41‐kyr to the 100‐kyr that occurred during the Mid‐Pleistocene Transition (MPT). Beside longer glacial‐interglacial (G‐IG) variability, millennial‐scale fluctuations were a pervasive feature across our study. Negative excursions in the benthicδ18O time series observed at the times of IRD events may be related to glacio‐eustatic changes due to ice sheets retreats and/or to changes in deep hydrography. Time series analysis on surface water proxies (IRD, SST and planktonicδ18O) of the interval between MIS 31 to MIS 26 shows that the timing of these millennial‐scale climate changes are related to half‐precessional (10 kyr) components of the insolation forcing, which are interpreted as cross‐equatorial heat transport toward high latitudes during both equinox insolation maxima at the equator.