Connecting the Atlantic-sector and the north Pacific (Mt Logan) ice core stable isotope records during the Holocene: The role of El Niño

Abstract

The δ(¹⁸O) Holocene of the Mt Logan ice core is very different from those of eastern Arctic Canada and Greenland. The large changes seen in Logan dwarf even the largest change (the cooling event 8200 years ago) in the Atlantic-sector cores. Large changes in Logan’s δ(¹⁸O) and d are related to the state of El Niño as reflected by the Quelccaya δ(¹⁸O) series. It is found that the lagged auto-difference series of the ice core records from the Agassiz ice cap, Greenland and the 23-site stack of paleotemperature records of Kaufman et al. (Kaufman DS, Schneider DP, McKay NP, Ammann CM, Bradley RS, Briffa KR et al. (2009) Recent warming reverses long-term Arctic cooling. Science 325: 1236) produce highly significant matches to the Mt Logan δ(¹⁸O) series. These correspondences suggest a lag of 1200 years. This lag time is what some models of the Diffusive-Great Ocean Conveyor (D-GOC) predict for the average travel time from the North Atlantic to the tropical eastern Pacific. Monte Carlo testing of the correlations show that they are very significant. The implications of ENSO being affected by the difference between temperatures today and those of 1200 years ago are touched on.

Keywords

Agassiz El Niño Great Ocean Conveyor Greenland Holocene ice cores La Niña Mt Logan stable isotopes

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