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PALEOCEANOGRAPHY, VOL. 22, PA2215, doi:10.1029/2006PA001328, 2007

Long-term sea surface temperature and climate change in the Australian–New Zealand region

Timothy T. Barrows

Department of Nuclear Physics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia


Steve Juggins

School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK


Patrick De Deckker

Department of Earth and Marine Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia


Eva Calvo

Institut de Ciències del Mar, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Barcelona, Spain


Carles Pelejero

Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats and Institut de Ciències del Mar, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Barcelona, Spain


Abstract

We compile and compare data for the last 150,000 years from four deep-sea cores in the midlatitude zone of the Southern Hemisphere. We recalculate sea surface temperature estimates derived from foraminifera and compare these with estimates derived from alkenones and magnesium/calcium ratios in foraminiferal carbonate and with accompanying sedimentological and pollen records on a common absolute timescale. Using a stack of the highest-resolution records, we find that first-order climate change occurs in concert with changes in insolation in the Northern Hemisphere. Glacier extent and inferred vegetation changes in Australia and New Zealand vary in tandem with sea surface temperatures, signifying close links between oceanic and terrestrial temperature. In the Southern Ocean, rapid temperature change of the order of 6°C occurs within a few centuries and appears to have played an important role in midlatitude climate change. Sea surface temperature changes over longer periods closely match proxy temperature records from Antarctic ice cores. Warm events correlate with Antarctic events A1–A4 and appear to occur just before Dansgaard-Oeschger events 8, 12, 14, and 17 in Greenland.

Received 31 May 2006; accepted 6 December 2006; published 24 May 2007.

Keywords: sea surface temperature; climate change; Australia–New Zealand.

Index Terms: 0473 Biogeosciences: Paleoclimatology and paleoceanography (3344, 4900); 4954 Paleoceanography: Sea surface temperature; 4914 Paleoceanography: Continental climate records; 4901 Paleoceanography: Abrupt/rapid climate change (1605).

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Citation: Barrows, T. T., S. Juggins, P. De Deckker, E. Calvo, and C. Pelejero (2007), Long-term sea surface temperature and climate change in the Australian–New Zealand region, Paleoceanography, 22, PA2215, doi:10.1029/2006PA001328.