Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Antoni Rosell-Mele, Dr Erin McClymont
Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.
The cold upwelling "tongue" of the eastern equatorial Pacific is a central energetic feature of the ocean, dominating both the mean state and temporal variability of climate in the tropics and beyond. Recent evidence for the development of the modern cold tongue during the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition has been explained as the result of extratropical cooling that drove a shoaling of the thermocline. We have found that the sub-Antarctic and sub-Arctic regions underwent substantial cooling nearly synchronous to the cold tongue development, thereby providing support for this hypothesis. In addition, we show that sub-Antarctic climate changed in its response to Earth’s orbital variations, from a subtropical to a subpolar pattern, as expected if cooling shrank the warm-water sphere of the ocean and thus contracted the subtropical gyres.
Author(s): Martinez-Garcia A, Rosell-Mele A, McClymont EL, Gersonde R, Haug GH
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Science
Year: 2010
Volume: 328
Issue: 5985
Pages: 1550-1553
Print publication date: 18/06/2010
ISSN (print): 0036-8075
ISSN (electronic): 1095-9203
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science
URL: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/328/5985/1550
DOI: 10.1126/science.1184480
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric