Campus Units

Geological and Atmospheric Sciences

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

6-12-2012

Journal or Book Title

Nature Communications

Volume

3

Issue

899

DOI

10.1038/ncomms1901

Abstract

Despite numerous investigations, the dynamical origins of the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age remain uncertain. A major unresolved issue relating to internal climate dynamics is the mode and tempo of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation variability, and the significance of decadal-to-centennial scale changes in Atlantic meridional overturning circulation strength in regulating the climate of the last millennium. Here we use the time-constrained high-resolution local radiocarbon reservoir age offset derived from an absolutely dated annually resolved shell chronology spanning the past 1,350 years, to reconstruct changes in surface ocean circulation and climate. The water mass tracer data presented here from the North Icelandic shelf, combined with previously published data from the Arctic and subtropical Atlantic, show that surface Atlantic meridional overturning circulation dynamics likely amplified the relatively warm conditions during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the relatively cool conditions during the Little Ice Age within the North Atlantic sector.

Comments

This article is published as Wanamaker Jr, Alan D., Paul G. Butler, James D. Scourse, Jan Heinemeier, Jón Eiríksson, Karen Luise Knudsen, and Christopher A. Richardson. "Surface changes in the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during the last millennium." Nature communications 3 (2012): 899. doi: 10.1038/ncomms1901. Posted with permission.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Copyright Owner

Macmillan Publishers Limited

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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