Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 337, Issue 6095, Pages 704-709Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1221294
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Funding
- Natural Environment Research Council (UK)
- European Research Council (ERC) [2010-ADG-267931]
- European Community's Seventh Framework Programme [211384]
- EPICA-MIS (Enhanced Palaeoreconstruction and Integrated Climate Analysis Through Marine and Ice Core Studies) program
- Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship
- CORC-ARCHES (Consortium on the Ocean's Role in Climate/Abrupt climate Change Studies) Visiting Scientist post at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/D002206/1, NE/H009930/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- NERC [NE/D002206/1, NE/H009930/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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Earth's climate underwent a fundamental change between 1250 and 700 thousand years ago, the mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT), when the dominant periodicity of climate cycles changed from 41 thousand to 100 thousand years in the absence of substantial change in orbital forcing. Over this time, an increase occurred in the amplitude of change of deep-ocean foraminiferal oxygen isotopic ratios, traditionally interpreted as defining the main rhythm of ice ages although containing large effects of changes in deep-ocean temperature. We have separated the effects of decreasing temperature and increasing global ice volume on oxygen isotope ratios. Our results suggest that the MPT was initiated by an abrupt increase in Antarctic ice volume 900 thousand years ago. We see no evidence of a pattern of gradual cooling, but near-freezing temperatures occur at every glacial maximum.
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