Sustained North Atlantic warming drove anomalously intense MIS 11c interglacial

Hsun-Ming Hu; Gianluca Marino; Carlos Pérez-Mejías; Christoph Spötl; Yusuke Yokoyama; Jimin Yu; Eelco Rohling; Akihiro Kano; Patrick Ludwig; Joaquim G Pinto; Véronique Michel; Patricia Valensi; Xin Zhang; Xiuyang Jiang; Horng-Sheng Mii; Wei-Yi Chien; Hsien-Chen Tsai; Wen-Hui Sung; Chia-Hao Hsu; Elisabetta Starnini; Marta Zunino; Chuan-Chou Shen

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-50207-1

Sustained North Atlantic warming drove anomalously intense MIS 11c interglacial

Nat Commun. 2024 Jul 15;15(1):5933. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-50207-1.

Authors

Hsun-Ming Hu^{1

2

3}, Gianluca Marino⁴, Carlos Pérez-Mejías⁵, Christoph Spötl⁶, Yusuke Yokoyama^{7

8}, Jimin Yu^{9

10}, Eelco Rohling^{11

12}, Akihiro Kano⁷, Patrick Ludwig¹³, Joaquim G Pinto¹³, Véronique Michel^{14

15}, Patricia Valensi¹⁶, Xin Zhang¹⁷, Xiuyang Jiang¹⁷, Horng-Sheng Mii¹⁸, Wei-Yi Chien¹⁹, Hsien-Chen Tsai¹⁹, Wen-Hui Sung¹⁹, Chia-Hao Hsu¹⁹, Elisabetta Starnini²⁰, Marta Zunino²¹, Chuan-Chou Shen^{22

23}

Affiliations

¹ High-Precision Mass Spectrometry and Environment Change Laboratory (HISPEC), Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, ROC, Taiwan. [email protected].
² Radiogenic Isotope Facility, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. [email protected].
³ Research Center for Future Earth, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, ROC, Taiwan. [email protected].
⁴ Centro de Investigación Mariña, GEOMA, Palaeoclimatology Lab, Universidade de Vigo, Vigo, 3610, Spain. [email protected].
⁵ Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 710049, Xi'an, China.
⁶ Institute of Geology, University of Innsbruck, Innrain 52, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria.
⁷ Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba, 277-8564, Japan.
⁸ Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan.
⁹ Laoshan Laboratory, Qingdao, 266237, China.
¹⁰ Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
¹¹ Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, 3584, CB, Utrecht, Netherlands.
¹² Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK.
¹³ Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research Troposphere Research (IMKTRO), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
¹⁴ Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, CEPAM, 06300, Nice, France.
¹⁵ Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, OCA, IRD, Géoazur, 06560, Valbonne, France.
¹⁶ UMR7194 HNHP (MNHN-CNRS-UPVD), Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, 75013, Paris, France.
¹⁷ Key Laboratory of Humid Subtropical Eco-Geographical Processes, Ministry of Education, College of Geography Science, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350007, China.
¹⁸ Department of Earth Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, 11677, ROC, Taiwan.
¹⁹ High-Precision Mass Spectrometry and Environment Change Laboratory (HISPEC), Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, ROC, Taiwan.
²⁰ Department of Civilizations and Forms of Knowledge, University of Pisa, Via dei Mille 19, 56126, Pisa, Italy.
²¹ Toirano Cave, Piazzale D. Maineri 1, 17055, Toirano (SV), Italy.
²² High-Precision Mass Spectrometry and Environment Change Laboratory (HISPEC), Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, ROC, Taiwan. [email protected].
²³ Research Center for Future Earth, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, ROC, Taiwan. [email protected].

Abstract

The Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11c interglacial and its preceding glacial termination represent an enigmatically intense climate response to relatively weak insolation forcing. So far, a lack of radiometric age control has confounded a detailed assessment of the insolation-climate relationship during this period. Here, we present ²³⁰Th-dated speleothem proxy data from northern Italy and compare them with palaeoclimate records from the North Atlantic region. We find that interglacial conditions started in subtropical to middle latitudes at 423.1 ± 1.3 thousand years (kyr) before present, during a first weak insolation maximum, whereas northern high latitudes remained glaciated (sea level ~ 40 m below present). Some 14.5 ± 2.8 kyr after this early subtropical onset, peak interglacial conditions were reached globally, with sea level 6-13 m above present, despite weak insolation forcing. We attribute this remarkably intense climate response to an exceptionally long (~15 kyr) episode of intense poleward heat flux transport prior to the MIS 11c optimum.