Publications by authors named "Todd A Sowers"
The Greenland spatial fingerprint of Dansgaard-Oeschger events in observations and models.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
October 2024
Article Synopsis
- The study examines abrupt climate changes during the Pleistocene Ice Ages, known as Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) oscillations, using Greenland ice cores to analyze temperature shifts and their potential long-term impacts.
- It introduces new ice-core records from southern and eastern Greenland to enhance understanding of DO event magnitudes and creates a multiproxy assessment of their effects across Greenland.
- The findings suggest that variations in wintertime sea ice in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre are crucial for explaining DO variability, and that changes in vapor source distribution, rather than site temperature, mainly influence Greenland's isotope signals during these climate transitions.
During the last ice age, the Laurentide Ice Sheet exhibited extreme iceberg discharge events that are recorded in North Atlantic sediments. These Heinrich events have far-reaching climate impacts, including widespread disruptions to hydrological and biogeochemical cycles. They occurred during Heinrich stadials-cold periods with strongly weakened Atlantic overturning circulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWater-stable isotopes in polar ice cores are a widely used temperature proxy in paleoclimate reconstruction, yet calibration remains challenging in East Antarctica. Here, we reconstruct the magnitude and spatial pattern of Last Glacial Maximum surface cooling in Antarctica using borehole thermometry and firn properties in seven ice cores. West Antarctic sites cooled ~10°C relative to the preindustrial period.
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