Regional and global sea-surface temperatures during the last interglaciation

Jeremy S. Hoffman; Peter U. Clark; Andrew C. Parnell; Feng He

doi:10.1126/science.aai8464

Regional and global sea-surface temperatures during the last interglaciation

Jeremy S. Hoffman
, Peter U. Clark
, Andrew C. Parnell
, Feng He

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

194 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The last interglaciation (LIG, 129 to 116 thousand years ago) was the most recent time in Earth's history when global mean sea level was substantially higher than it is at present. However, reconstructions of LIG global temperature remain uncertain, with estimates ranging from no significant difference to nearly 2°C warmer than present-day temperatures. Here we use a network of sea-surface temperature (SST) records to reconstruct spatiotemporal variability in regional and global SSTs during the LIG. Our results indicate that peak LIG global mean annual SSTs were 0.5 ± 0.3°C warmer than the climatological mean from 1870 to 1889 and indistinguishable from the 1995 to 2014 mean. LIG warming in the extratropical latitudes occurred in response to boreal insolation and the bipolar seesaw, whereas tropical SSTs were slightly cooler than the 1870 to 1889 mean in response to reduced mean annual insolation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	276-279
Number of pages	4
Journal	Science
Volume	355
Issue number	6322
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aai8464
Publication status	Published (in print/issue) - 20 Jan 2017

Funding

Research was supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to J.S.H. under NSF grant 1314109-DGE and by NSF grants 1335197 and 1503032 to P.U.C. F.H. was supported by NSF grant AGS-1502990 and by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship program, administered by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. We acknowledge high-performance computing support from Yellowstone (ark:/85065/d7wd3xhc) provided by the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory, sponsored by the NSF. This research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract no. DE-AC05-00OR22725. We thank the members of the Past Global Changes-Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PAGES-PMIP) Working Group on Quaternary Interglacials, P. Bakker, H. A. Bauch, A. E. Carlson, M. S. Hoecker-Martinez, S. A. Marcott, H. L. O. McClelland, N. McKay, A. C. Mix, N. G. Pisias, and J. D. Shakun for helpful discussions. The authors report no conflicts of interest. J.S.H. and P.U.C. designed the study and wrote the manuscript with help from A.C.P. and F.H. We acknowledge insightful comments from two anonymous reviewers. The data reported in this paper are tabulated in the supplementary materials.

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10.1126/science.aai8464

Cite this

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title = "Regional and global sea-surface temperatures during the last interglaciation",

abstract = "The last interglaciation (LIG, 129 to 116 thousand years ago) was the most recent time in Earth's history when global mean sea level was substantially higher than it is at present. However, reconstructions of LIG global temperature remain uncertain, with estimates ranging from no significant difference to nearly 2°C warmer than present-day temperatures. Here we use a network of sea-surface temperature (SST) records to reconstruct spatiotemporal variability in regional and global SSTs during the LIG. Our results indicate that peak LIG global mean annual SSTs were 0.5 ± 0.3°C warmer than the climatological mean from 1870 to 1889 and indistinguishable from the 1995 to 2014 mean. LIG warming in the extratropical latitudes occurred in response to boreal insolation and the bipolar seesaw, whereas tropical SSTs were slightly cooler than the 1870 to 1889 mean in response to reduced mean annual insolation.",

author = "Hoffman, \{Jeremy S.\} and Clark, \{Peter U.\} and Parnell, \{Andrew C.\} and Feng He",

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AU - Hoffman, Jeremy S.

AU - Clark, Peter U.

AU - Parnell, Andrew C.

AU - He, Feng

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Y1 - 2017/1/20

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AB - The last interglaciation (LIG, 129 to 116 thousand years ago) was the most recent time in Earth's history when global mean sea level was substantially higher than it is at present. However, reconstructions of LIG global temperature remain uncertain, with estimates ranging from no significant difference to nearly 2°C warmer than present-day temperatures. Here we use a network of sea-surface temperature (SST) records to reconstruct spatiotemporal variability in regional and global SSTs during the LIG. Our results indicate that peak LIG global mean annual SSTs were 0.5 ± 0.3°C warmer than the climatological mean from 1870 to 1889 and indistinguishable from the 1995 to 2014 mean. LIG warming in the extratropical latitudes occurred in response to boreal insolation and the bipolar seesaw, whereas tropical SSTs were slightly cooler than the 1870 to 1889 mean in response to reduced mean annual insolation.

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Regional and global sea-surface temperatures during the last interglaciation

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Peter Clark

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Regional and global sea-surface temperatures during the last interglaciation

Abstract

Funding

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Peter Clark

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