Abstract

Little has challenged our understanding of climate change more so than the abruptness with which large-scale shifts in temperature occurred during the last glacial period. Atmospheric temperature jumps occurring within decades over Greenland were closely matched by rapid changes in North Atlantic sea surface temperatures and major re-organisation of the deep ocean circulation. Although these climatic instabilities are well-documented in various proxy records, the causal mechanisms of such short-lived oscillations remain poorly understood, largely due to the dating uncertainties that prevent the integration of different archives. This talk explores how microscopic traces of volcanic events can be used to precisely correlate the Greenland ice-cores with North Atlantic marine records. These time-lines are used to constrain the lead/lag responses between the atmospheric and oceanic systems during the last glacial period.