The 8.2 Ka Abrupt Climate Event: Causes, Impacts and Future Implications

Abstract. The Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP3) now includes the 8.2 ka event as a test of model sensitivity to North Atlantic freshwater forcing. To provide benchmarks for intercomparison, we compiled and analyzed high-resolution records spanning this event. Two previously-described anomaly patterns that emerge are cooling around the North Atlantic and drier conditions in the Northern Hemisphere tropics. Newer to this compilation are more robustly-defined wetter conditions in the Southern Hemisphere tropics and regionally-limited warming in the Southern Hemisphere. Most anomalies around the globe lasted on the order of 100 to 150 yr. More quantitative reconstructions are now available and indicate cooling of ~ 1 °C and a ~ 20% decrease in precipitation in parts of Europe as well as spatial gradients in δ18O from the high to low latitudes. Unresolved questions remain about the seasonality of the climate response to freshwater forcing and the extent to which the bipolar seesaw operated in the early Holocene.

The North Atlantic warming hole is an area of relative cooling in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre. Observations and models have suggested numerous causes of the warming hole, including a role for wind-driven ocean circulation changes. We investigate the role of wind-driven ocean circulation changes on the development and projected future of the North Atlantic warming hole by comparing two ensembles within the Community Earth System Model, version 2 (CESM2). One ensemble includes wind-driven ocean circulation changes, while the other does not. The difference between the ensemble means isolates the role of wind-driven ocean circulation changes on the externally forced North Atlantic warming hole. We find that wind-driven ocean circulation changes do not alter the timing of the formation of an externally forced warming hole. However, anthropogenic changes to the near-surface winds lead to enhanced upwelling near Greenland, and wind stress changes enable a positive feedback loop that relies on changes to mechanical stirring. These mechanisms amplify the cooling in the high latitude North Atlantic and lead to increased sea level pressure and reduced precipitation near the southern tip of Greenland. Thus, changes to wind-driven ocean circulation are a crucial component of future changes in North Atlantic climate. Improved understanding of ocean–atmosphere coupling in this region will improve projections of sea surface temperatures and associated atmospheric impacts. Significance Statement The purpose of this study is to quantify the role that changes to the wind-driven component of ocean circulation have on future sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre region. This region has warmed less than the global average, often referred to as a “warming hole.” We use a targeted climate model experiment to demonstrate that wind-driven ocean circulation changes do not cause the modeled North Atlantic warming hole. However, wind-driven ocean circulation changes alter the warming hole beginning in 2040. This demonstrates that monitoring and understanding changes to the surface winds and ocean currents in the North Atlantic is important for understanding future climate changes in the region.

Abstract. Ice-core records show that abrupt Dansgaard–Oeschger (D–O) climatic warming events of the last glacial period were accompanied by large increases in the atmospheric CH4 concentration (up to 200 ppbv). These abrupt changes are generally regarded as arising from the effects of changes in the Atlantic Ocean meridional overturning circulation and the resultant climatic impact on natural CH4 sources, in particular wetlands. We use two different ecosystem models of wetland CH4 emissions to simulate northern CH4 sources forced with coupled general circulation model simulations of five different time periods during the last glacial to investigate the potential influence of abrupt ocean circulation changes on atmospheric CH4 levels during D–O events. The simulated warming over Greenland of 7–9 °C in the different time periods is at the lower end of the range of 11–15 °C derived from ice cores, but is associated with strong impacts on the hydrological cycle, especially over the North Atlantic and Europe during winter. We find that although the sensitivity of CH4 emissions to the imposed climate varies significantly between the two ecosystem emissions models, the model simulations do not reproduce sufficient emission changes to satisfy ice-core observations of CH4 increases during abrupt events. The inclusion of permafrost physics and peatland carbon cycling in one model (LPJ-WHyMe) increases the climatic sensitivity of CH44 emissions relative to the Sheffield Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (SDGVM) model, which does not incorporate these processes. For equilibrium conditions this additional sensitivity is mostly due to differences in carbon cycle processes, whilst the increased sensitivity to the imposed abrupt warmings is also partly due to the effects of freezing on soil thermodynamics. These results suggest that alternative scenarios of climatic change could be required to explain the abrupt glacial CH4 variations, perhaps with a more dominant role for tropical wetland CH4 sources.

In response to greenhouse gas forcing, climate models predict that poleward ocean heat transport (OHT) weakens in the Southern Ocean but increases in the Arctic. The role of ocean circulation changes in this OHT response has been evaluated by decomposing OHT anomalies into a dynamic component (holding ocean temperature fixed while circulation evolves) and a thermodynamic component (holding ocean circulation fixed while temperature evolves). However, ocean temperature changes are themselves shaped by circulation changes through redistribution of the existing heat reservoir and subsequent effects on air–sea heat fluxes. The thermodynamic component can therefore be influenced by circulation changes, making the standard thermodynamic – dynamic decomposition incomplete for isolating the role of circulation changes in OHT anomalies. To address this issue, we use a passive – active decomposition to assess the relative contributions of ocean circulation and passive ocean temperature changes to polar OHT anomalies in a fully coupled climate model. Passive temperature changes are defined as those thermally forced by the atmosphere in the absence of circulation changes. In this passive–active decomposition, an advective term involving both circulation and passive temperature changes remains ambiguous—classifying it as active implies circulation changes dominate Southern Ocean OHT anomalies, whereas classifying it as passive implies temperature changes dominate. However, both interpretations imply that ocean circulation changes have a much weaker effect on polar OHT anomalies than inferred from the standard decomposition. These results help reconcile conclusions from studies using the standard decomposition with those using passive tracer methods to assess the role of circulation changes in polar OHT anomalies.

Abstract. Thanks to its optimal location on the northern Brazilian margin, core MD09-3257 records both ocean circulation and atmospheric changes. The latter occur locally in the form of increased rainfall on the adjacent continent during the cold intervals recorded in Greenland ice and northern North Atlantic sediment cores (i.e., Greenland stadials). These rainfall events are recorded in MD09-3257 as peaks in ln(Ti ∕ Ca). New sedimentary Pa ∕ Th data indicate that mid-depth western equatorial water mass transport decreased during all of the Greenland stadials of the last 40 kyr. Using cross-wavelet transforms and spectrogram analysis, we assess the relative phase between the MD09-3257 sedimentary Pa ∕ Th and ln(Ti ∕ Ca) signals. We show that decreased water mass transport between a depth of ∼1300 and 2300 m in the western equatorial Atlantic preceded increased rainfall over the adjacent continent by 120 to 400 yr at Dansgaard–Oeschger (D–O) frequencies, and by 280 to 980 yr at Heinrich-like frequencies. We suggest that the large lead of ocean circulation changes with respect to changes in tropical South American precipitation at Heinrich-like frequencies is related to the effect of a positive feedback involving iceberg discharges in the North Atlantic. In contrast, the absence of widespread ice rafted detrital layers in North Atlantic cores during D–O stadials supports the hypothesis that a feedback such as this was not triggered in the case of D–O stadials, with circulation slowdowns and subsequent changes remaining more limited during D–O stadials than Heinrich stadials.

Isotope, aerosol, and methane records document an abrupt cooling event across the Northern Hemisphere at 8.2 kiloyears before present (kyr), while separate geologic lines of evidence document the catastrophic drainage of the glacial Lakes Agassiz and Ojibway into the Hudson Bay at approximately the same time. This melt water pulse may have been the catalyst for a decrease in North Atlantic Deep Water formation and subsequent cooling around the Northern Hemisphere. However, lack of direct evidence for ocean cooling has lead to speculation that this abrupt event was purely local to Greenland and called into question this proposed mechanism. We simulate the response to this melt water pulse using a coupled general circulation model that explicitly tracks water isotopes and with atmosphere-only experiments that calculate changes in atmospheric aerosol deposition (specifically (10)Be and dust) and wetland methane emissions. The simulations produce a short period of significantly diminished North Atlantic Deep Water and are able to quantitatively match paleoclimate observations, including the lack of isotopic signal in the North Atlantic. This direct comparison with multiple proxy records provides compelling evidence that changes in ocean circulation played a major role in this abrupt climate change event.

Postglacial North Atlantic

PALEOCEANOGRAPHY, RECORDS | Postglacial North Atlantic

The 8.2 ka event was the last deglacial abrupt climate event. A reduction in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) attributed to the drainage of glacial Lake Agassiz may have caused the event, but the freshwater signature of Lake Agassiz discharge has yet to be identified in δ18O of foraminiferal calcite records from the Labrador Sea, calling into question the connection between freshwater discharge to the North Atlantic and AMOC strength. Using Mg/Ca‐paleothermometry, we demonstrate that ∼3°C of near‐surface ocean cooling masked an ∼1.0‰ decrease in western Labrador Seaδ18O of seawater concurrent with Lake Agassiz drainage. Comparison with North Atlantic δ18O of seawater records shows that the freshwater discharge was transported to regions of deep‐water formation where it could perturb AMOC and force the 8.2 ka event.

Abstract. We combine consistently dated benthic carbon isotopic records distributed over the entire Atlantic Ocean with numerical simulations performed by a glacial configuration of the Norwegian Earth System Model with active ocean biogeochemistry in order to interpret the observed Cibicides δ13C changes at the stadial–interstadial transition corresponding to the end of Heinrich Stadial 4 (HS4) in terms of ocean circulation and remineralization changes. We show that the marked increase in Cibicides δ13C observed at the end of HS4 between ∼2000 and 4200 m in the Atlantic can be explained by changes in nutrient concentrations as simulated by the model in response to the halting of freshwater input in the high-latitude glacial North Atlantic. Our model results show that this Cibicides δ13C signal is associated with changes in the ratio of southern-sourced (SSW) versus northern-sourced (NSW) water masses at the core sites, whereby SSW is replaced by NSW as a consequence of the resumption of deep-water formation in the northern North Atlantic and Nordic Seas after the freshwater input is halted. Our results further suggest that the contribution of ocean circulation changes to this signal increases from ∼40 % at 2000 m to ∼80 % at 4000 m. Below ∼4200 m, the model shows little ocean circulation change but an increase in remineralization across the transition marking the end of HS4. The simulated lower remineralization during stadials compared to during interstadials is particularly pronounced in deep subantarctic sites, in agreement with the decrease in the export production of carbon to the deep Southern Ocean during stadials found in previous studies.

Postglacial North Atlantic

Chapter 8 - Meghalayan Stage (Late Holocene, 4.2 ka–present)

The northern hemisphere experienced an abrupt cold event ~ 8200 years ago (the 8.2 ka event) that was triggered by the release of meltwater into the Labrador Sea, and resulting in a weakening of the poleward oceanic heat transport. Although this event has been considered a possible analogue for future ocean circulation changes due to the projected Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) melting, large uncertainties in the amount and rate of freshwater released during the 8.2 ka event make such a comparison difficult. In this study, we compare sea surface temperatures and oxygen isotope ratios from 28 isotope-enabled model simulations with 35 paleoproxy records to constrain the meltwater released during the 8.2 ka event. Our results suggest that a combination of 5.3 m of meltwater in sea level rise equivalent (SLR) released over a thousand years, with a short intensification over ~ 130 years (an additional 2.2 m of equivalent SLR) due to routing of the Canadian river discharge, best reproduces the proxy anomalies. Our estimate is of the same order of magnitude as projected future GIS melting rates under the high emission scenario RCP8.5.

Energy carried by warm tropical water, transported via the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), plays a vital role in regulating the climate of regions bordering the North Atlantic Ocean. Previous phases of elevated freshwater input to areas of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) production in the early to mid-Holocene have been linked with slow-downs in the AMOC and changes in regional climate. Newfoundland’s proximity in the North Atlantic region to the confluence of the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current and to an area of NADW production in the Labrador Sea makes it an ideal testing ground to investigate the influence of past fluctuations in ocean circulation on terrestrial ecosystems. We use multi-proxy peat-based records from the east coast of Newfoundland to derive a proxy-climate signal for the past 8000 years, which we have compared with changes in ocean circulation. Prominent shifts towards near-surface bog water-table levels, reflecting cooler/wetter climatic conditions, are evident in the early mid-Holocene at c. 7830, 7500, 7220 and 6600 cal. BP with minor changes occurring at c. 6340 and 6110 cal. BP. These events are coherent with evidence of meltwater injections into the N. Atlantic and of reduced NADW production. More recent increases in bog surface wetness in the mid- to late Holocene at c. 4290 and c. 2610 cal. BP are also consistent with reported periods of reduced NADW production. Coherence between the bog-derived palaeoclimate record developed from Newfoundland and evidence of fluctuations in ocean current strength is apparent in the early mid-Holocene.

This study examines global patterns of net ocean surface heat flux changes (ΔQnet) under greenhouse warming in an ocean–atmosphere coupled model based on a heat budget decomposition. The regional structure of ΔQnetis primarily shaped by ocean heat divergence changes (ΔOHD): excessive heat is absorbed by higher-latitude oceans (mainly over the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean), transported equatorward, and stored in lower-latitude oceans with the rest being released to the tropical atmosphere. The overall global pattern of ΔOHD is primarily due to the circulation change and partially compensated by the passive advection effect, except for the Southern Ocean, which requires further investigations for a more definitive attribution. The mechanisms of North Atlantic surface heat uptake are further explored. In another set of global warming simulations, a perturbation of freshwater removal is imposed over the subpolar North Atlantic to largely offset the CO2-induced changes in the local ocean vertical stratification, barotropic gyre, and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Results from the freshwater perturbation experiments suggest that a significant portion of the positive ΔQnetover the North Atlantic under greenhouse warming is caused by the Atlantic circulation changes, perhaps mainly by the slowdown of AMOC, while the passive advection effect can contribute to the regional variations of ΔQnet. Our results imply that ocean circulation changes are critical for shaping global warming pattern and thus hydrological cycle changes.