Millennial-scale surface hydrological variability in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean linked to Northern Hemisphere high latitudes

Surface hydrology in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean significantly impacts low-latitude climate processes including the Indonesian-Australian Monsoon and the Indian Ocean Dipole. Deciphering the evolution of surface hydrology and driving mechanisms is thus important to better understand low-latitude and global climate change. Here, we present ~206 yr-resolved temperature and salinity records of surface waters spanning the past ~31 kyr, based on δ 18 O and Mg/Ca ratio of Globigerinoides ruber from Core SO18567 retrieved offshore northwestern Australia in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean. By integrating new records with published paleo-oceanographic and -climatological records, we found that increasing sea surface temperature and decreasing salinity in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean during the Heinrich stadial 1 and the Younger Dryas could be attributed to collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Melting of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets would have led to a southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and reduced transport of warm surface waters from the low latitudes to the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes. In addition, our results indicate that the onset of the last deglacial warming in low latitudes was linked to weakening of the Hadley circulation and AMOC due to warming of Northern Hemisphere high latitudes, rather than raised global atmospheric CO 2 concentration.

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Publication Details

Journal
Frontiers in Marine Science
Published
2025-04-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2025.1570375
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.30

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article

Millennial-scale surface hydrological variability in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean linked to Northern Hemisphere high latitudes

Ann Holbourn, Wolfgang Kuhnt, Rui Cui, Jian Xu et al.
1 citations
Frontiers in Marine Science
Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
1.30
article

Millennial-scale surface hydrological variability in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean linked to Northern Hemisphere high latitudes

Ann Holbourn, Wolfgang Kuhnt, Rui Cui, Jian Xu, Peng Zhang
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Surface hydrology in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean significantly impacts low-latitude climate processes including the Indonesian-Australian Monsoon and the Indian Ocean Dipole. Deciphering the evolution of surface hydrology and driving mechanisms is thus important to better understand low-latitude and global climate change. Here, we present ~206 yr-resolved temperature and salinity records of surface waters spanning the past ~31 kyr, based on δ 18 O and Mg/Ca ratio of Globigerinoides ruber from Core SO18567 retrieved offshore northwestern Australia in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean. By integrating new records with published paleo-oceanographic and -climatological records, we found that increasing sea surface temperature and decreasing salinity in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean during the Heinrich stadial 1 and the Younger Dryas could be attributed to collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Melting of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets would have led to a southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and reduced transport of warm surface waters from the low latitudes to the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes. In addition, our results indicate that the onset of the last deglacial warming in low latitudes was linked to weakening of the Hadley circulation and AMOC due to warming of Northern Hemisphere high latitudes, rather than raised global atmospheric CO 2 concentration.

Frontiers in Marine ScienceVol. 12
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (DE), Northwest University (CN), Continental (United Kingdom) (GB)
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Tongji University, State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, National Key Research and Development Program of China
Openalex Percentile: Top 24%
Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
1.30
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