Gradual onset and recovery of the Younger Dryas abrupt climate event in the tropics.

ABSTRACT: Proxy records of temperature from the Atlantic clearly show that the Younger Dryas was an abrupt climate change event during the last deglaciation, but records of hydroclimate are underutilized in defining the event. Here we combine a new hydroclimate record from Palawan, Philippines, in the tropical Pacific, with previously published records to highlight a difference between hydroclimate and temperature responses to the Younger Dryas. Although the onset and termination are synchronous across the records, tropical hydroclimate changes are more gradual (>100 years) than the abrupt (10-100 years) temperature changes in the northern Atlantic Ocean. The abrupt recovery of Greenland temperatures likely reflects changes in regional sea ice extent. Proxy data and transient climate model simulatio

SUBMITTER: Partin JW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4569703 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature