Iberian Margin surface ocean cooling led freshening during Marine Isotope Stage 6 abrupt cooling events

The high-resolution paleoclimate records on the Iberian Margin provide an excellent archive to study the mechanism of abrupt climate events. Previous studies on the Iberian Margin proposed that the surface cooling reconstructed by the alkenone-unsaturation index coincided with surface water freshening inferred from an elevated percentage of tetra-unsaturated alkenones, C37:4%. However, recent data indicate that marine alkenone producers, coccolithophores, do not produce more C37:4 in culture as salinity decreases. Hence, the causes for high C37:4 are still unclear. Here we provide detailed alkenone measurements to trace the producers of alkenones in combination with foraminiferal Mg/Ca and oxygen isotope ratios to trace salinity variations. The results indicate that all alkenones were produced by coccolithophores and the high C37:4% reflects decrease in SST instead of freshening. Furthermore, during the millennial climate changes, a surface freshening did not always trigger a cooling, but sometimes happened in the middle of multiple-stage cooling events and likely amplified the temperature decrease. Based on reconstructions of sea surface temperature and salinity, the authors find that surface freshening did not always trigger cooling during a millennial climate event on the Iberian Margin.

Automated summary

The high-resolution paleoclimate records on the Iberian Margin are important for studying abrupt climate events. Previous studies suggested a correlation between surface cooling and water freshening, but recent data indicate that the high concentration of a specific alkenone is not caused by decreased salinity, but by a decrease in sea surface temperature. Additionally, surface freshening does not always trigger cooling during millennial climate changes, sometimes occurring in the middle of cooling events and potentially amplifying temperature decrease.