Reply on RC2

Abstract

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> During the Late Pleistocene, Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) cycles triggered warming events that were as abrupt as the present-day human-induced warming. However, in absence of a periodic forcing operating on millennial time scales, the main energy sources of DO cycles remain debated. Here, we identify the energy sources of DO cycles by applying a bispectral analysis to the North Greenland ice core project (NGRIP) oxygen isotope (&delta;¹⁸O_ice) record&mdash;a 123-thousand-years (kyr) long proxy-record of air-temperatures (T_air) over Greenland. For both modes of DO cyclicity&mdash;slow and fast&mdash;we detect disparate energy sources. Slow-DO cycles are marked by multi-millennial periodicities in the 12.5 to 2.5 kyr bandwidth and receive energy from astronomical periodicities. Fast-DO cycles have millennial periodicities in the 1.5 &plusmn; 0.5 kyr range and receive energy from centennial periodicities. We propose cryospheric and oceanic mechanisms that facilitate the transfer of energy from known sources to slow- and fast-DO cycles, respectively. Our findings stress the importance of understanding energy-transfer mechanisms across a broad range of time scales to explain the origins of climate cycles without primary periodic energy-sources.