Sea-Surface Temperature Variability in the Southeast
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SEA-SURFACE TEMPERATURE VARIABILITY IN THE SOUTHEAST PACIFIC DURING THE LAST GLACIAL-INTERGLACIAL CYCLE AND RELATIONSHIPS TO PALEOENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES IN CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN CHILE Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades am Fachbereich Geowissenschaften der Universität Bremen Vorgelegt von Jérôme KAISER Bremen, November 2005 Kaiser, Jérôme 1. November 2005 DFG-Research Centre Ocean Margins, Universität Bremen, Leobenerstrasse, 28334 Bremen, Germany Erklärung Hiermit versichere ich, dass ich 1. die Arbeit ohne unerlaubte fremde Hilfe angefertigt habe, 2. keine anderen als die von mir angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel benutzt habe und 3. die den benutzten Werken wörtlich oder inhaltlich entnommenen Stellen als solche kenntlich gemacht habe. Bremen, den 1. November 2005 Jérôme Kaiser Acknowledgments This work wouldn’t have been what it is without Frank Lamy first of all. So I really want to thank Frank for his interest and enthusiasm in this work, as well as for his very human and friendly being. I’m grateful also to Dierk Hebbeln, especially for his always-helpful advices. I think I have been lucky to have such supervisors. I further thank Ralf Tiedemann for assessing this work together with Dierk. A lot of people contribute more or less directly to this work. Helge Arz and Emmanuel Chapron are acknowledged for their helpful ideas and discussions. I had a lot of good time with Ralph Kreutz in the lab. It has been a nice way to learn about these “little guys”. I’m also grateful to Marcus Elvert and Enno Schefuss for their help, advices and lights on the basis of (bio)geochemistry. Konrad Hughen and Nick Drenzek are thanked for the opportunity they gave me to work at the WHOI for some months. Thanks also to Marco Mohtadi, Jan- Berend Stuut, Ricardo De Pol-Holz, Julio Sepulvada and others co-workers on the Chilean climate history. Research was part of these three last years, but another important time was the one to decompress and “talk-a-lot-to-say-nothing”. I want to bow all my friends from France, Switzerland and Germany, but especially Rik, Marius and Xavier. My parents have also their place here as they were always supporting me in all my choices and desires. Finally, my main thanks and feelings go to Ina who had had to bear my humors and Latin way of life … And thanks for all the fishes !! 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Late Quaternary climate variability: Northern and Southern Hemispheres 1 1.2 Contributions of the Southeast Pacific 3 1.3 Objectives 6 2. OCEANOGRAPHIC, ATMOSPHERIC AND PHYSIOGRAPHIC SETTINGS 8 2.1 Sea-surface and deep oceanic circulation in the Southeast Pacific 8 2.2 The southern Westerly winds, or Westerlies 11 2.3 Geology and vegetation cover of the Chilean hinterland 13 3. METHODOLOGY 17 3.1 Stratigraphy 17 3.2 Alkenone-based sea-surface temperature reconstruction 18 3.3 Sea-surface salinity reconstruction 22 3.4 X-ray fluorescence measurement 24 3.5 Long-chain n-alkanes 24 4. MANUSCRIPTS 26 4.1 Antarctic timing of surface water changes off Chile and Patagonian Ice Sheet 26 response (F. Lamy, J. Kaiser, U. Ninnemann, D. Hebbeln, H. Arz and J. Stoner) 4.2 A 70-kyr sea-surface temperature record off southern Chile (ODP Site 1233) 42 (J. Kaiser, F. Lamy and D. Hebbeln) 4.3 Variability of sea-surface temperatures off Chile and the dynamics of the Patagonian 66 Ice Sheet during the last glacial period based on ODP Site 1233 (J. Kaiser, F. Lamy, H. Arz and D. Hebbeln) 4.4 The last deglaciation off southern Chile at a sub-centennial resolution: interactions of 84 the Patagonian Ice Sheet, sea-surface temperatures and alkenone productivity (J. Kaiser, F. Lamy, U. Ninnemann, D. Hebbeln and H. Arz) 4.5 Southeast Pacific sea-surface circulation and vegetation changes in central Chile 95 during the last 40 kyr (J. Kaiser, F. Lamy, E. Schefuss, R. De Pol-Holz and D. Hebbeln) 4.6 Melting of the Patagonian Ice Sheet and deglacial perturbations of the nitrogen cycle 111 in the Eastern South Pacific (R. De Pol-Holz, O. Ulloa, L. Dezileau, J. Kaiser, F. Lamy and D. Hebbeln) 5. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 120 6. PERSPECTIVES 124 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY 126 SECTION 1. INTRODUCTION 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Late Quaternary climate variability: Northern and Southern Hemispheres The Late Quaternary time-period is characterized by several phases of long-term climate shifts between glacial and interglacial states, i.e. an oscillation between cold times with the development of large ice-sheets over the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and Southern Hemisphere (SH) high-latitudes with low sea-level, and relatively warm periods similar to the modern climate. The main origin of these cycles is linked to changes in the astronomical parameters of the Earth (Milankovitch, 1941), involving non-linear responses from continental ice-sheets and other climate components (Imbrie et al., 1992). The last glacial/interglacial cycle spanned the previous ~125,000 yr (125 kyr) and is probably the most thoroughly studied interval of the Earth’s history using a vast variety of proxy records from both marine and terrestrial archives, as well as modeling studies. Superimposed on a long-term trend, high and abrupt climate variability on a multi- millennial to multi-centennial timescale characterize the last glacial period. Ice-cores and marine records have shown a number of climate oscillations called the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles (DO; Dansgaard et al., 1984) and Heinrich events (HE; Heinrich, 1988), involving temperature changes at the ice surface of as much as 9°C in a few decades (e.g., Severinghaus and Brook, 1999). Presenting a recurrent pattern with a pacing of ~1-4.5 kyr and 5-10 kyr respectively, the ultimate origin of these events is still discussed controversially. A number of processes are being discussed including mechanisms linked to orbital forcing, solar variability, ice-sheet instabilities, or floods from glacier-dammed lakes (see for a review e.g., Alley et al., 2003; Labeyrie et al., 2003), that may involve stochastic resonance of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system (e.g., Alley et al., 2001; Ganopolski and Rahmstorf, 2002). Independent of their ultimate origin, it is generally accepted that both DO and HE events are closely linked to modifications in the thermohaline circulation (THC; Broecker et al., 1985; see for a review Rahmstorf, 2002). The THC, or global conveyor circulation, corresponds to a hypothetic, large-scale oceanic surface and deep circulation mode. In the North Atlantic realm, and to a minor extent around Antarctica, respectively North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) and Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) are formed by sinking of cold and salty waters. These water masses spread towards the south (NADW) and the north (AABW), filling the deepest part of the oceans. Most of these deep waters further outcrop around Antarctica and returns within the surface as warm water to the North Atlantic region through the Drake and Cape of Good Hope passages. The still predominant explanation for the aforementioned abrupt climate changes is on the one hand that changes in the hydrological cycle in the North Atlantic would affect the THC and thus the global heat distribution (e.g., Stocker and Wright, 1991; Knutti et al., 2004). On the other hand, it has been proposed that rapid climate oscillations may also originate from the tropical Pacific, potentially involving a long-term modulation of inter-annual to decadal climate changes of the eastern tropical Pacific El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (Cane, 1998). Recently, a number of new data 1 SECTION 1. INTRODUCTION sets and modeling studies suggest an important role of the SH high-latitudes within the millennial-scale climate and ocean variability as well. An important step for a better understanding of the global pattern of rapid climate changes during the last glacial was the synchronization of ice-core records from Greenland and Antarctica using the methane concentrations measured in the ice (Blunier et al., 1998; Blunier and Brook, 2001). These data provided strong evidences for the so-called thermal see-saw mechanism (Crowley, 1992; Broecker, 1998; Stocker, 1998) that implies that major cold phases in the NH (such as HE events) correspond to warmings in the SH (the so-called A events) and vice versa, involving changes in the THC. Instead of an antiphase the ice-core data can also be interpreted in terms of a SH lead of ca. 1-3 kyr compared to the millennial- scale changes in the NH (e.g., Blunier and Brook, 2001; Brook et al., 2005), which does however not imply a SH trigger mechanism (Schmittner et al., 2003). Two modeling studies have shown that abrupt, millennial scale climatic changes over the last deglaciation as recorded in the Greenland ice-cores could have been triggered by the SH high-latitudes involving changes in sea-surface temperatures, sea-ice extent and freshwater input around Antarctica (Knorr and Lohmann, 2003; Weaver et al., 2003). Recently, Pahnke and Zahn (2005) presented a high resolution record of Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) production which play an important role in redistributing heat and freshwater within the upper ocean. The results imply a direct control of climate warming on AAIW conversion in the SH high- latitudes and are consistent with the concept of the bipolar seesaw mechanism. Antarctic sea-ice may have played an active role in climate changes by controlling atmospheric CO2 concentration changes on glacial-interglacial changes (e.g., Crosta et al., 2004; Stephens and Keeling, 2000). Kanfoush et al. (2000; 2003) have shown that SH cooling episodes at a millennial timescale are marked by an increased flux of ice rafted detritus in the Southern Ocean high- to mid-latitudes. These events were apparently in phase with periods of warmth and active THC in the NH.