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Enhanced climate instability in the North Atlantic and southern Europe during the Last Interglacial
Considerable ambiguity remains over the extent and nature of millennial/centennial-scale climate instability during the Last Interglacial (LIG). Here we analyse marine and terrestrial proxies from a deep-sea sediment sequence on the Portuguese Margin and combine results with an intensively dated Italian speleothem record and climate-model experiments. The strongest expression of climate variability occurred during the transitions into and out of the LIG. Our records also document a series of multi-centennial intra-interglacial arid events in southern Europe, coherent with cold water-mass expansions in the North Atlantic. The spatial and temporal fingerprints of these changes indicate a reorganization of ocean surface circulation, consistent with low-intensity disruptions of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The amplitude of this LIG variability is greater than that observed in Holocene records. Episodic Greenland ice melt and runoff as a result of excess warmth may have contributed to AMOC weakening and increased climate instability throughout the LIG.
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File | Pages | Size | Access | |
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Publisher's official version | 14 | 2 Mo | ||
Supplementary Information | 9 | 2 Mo | ||
Description of Additional Supplementary Files | 1 | 53 Ko | ||
Supplementary Data 1 | - | 121 Ko | ||
Supplementary Data 2 | - | 305 Ko | ||
Supplementary Data 3 | - | 99 Ko | ||
Supplementary Data 4 | - | 94 Ko |