ITCZ-monsoonal association during the last glacial (Cariaco Basin, Northern Arabian Sea)

The anoxic Cariaco Basin on the northern shelf of Venezuela preserves detailed records of past tropical climate variability. The sediment formation in this basin is controlled by the migration of the Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and the corresponding rain belt and trade winds. In the oxygen minimum zone off Pakistan in the northeastern Arabian Sea sediment archives of low-latitude monsoonal climate are preserved. In this study sediments from the two settings that cover the last 80,- to 110,000 years were analysed. Sediment color analysis resulted in reflectance records with a down to annual resolution. An age model was set up by correlation of these records to the δ18O record of Greenland ice (NGRIP). The major element chemistry of the sediments was analysed with X-ray fluorescence scanning. The new high resolution proxy records indicate an unbroken association between warm climate conditions over Greenland, a northerly position of the Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zone, and a strong Indian summer monsoon since the last glacial. The tight coupling is explained by a dominant role of the North Atlantic that is communicated largely through the atmosphere. New insights of dynamical mechanisms arise from comparison of individual Dansgaard-Oeschger events. The tropical records and the Greenland δ18O record show both an abrupt change at the beginning of an interstadial. The δ18O of Greenland ice peaks early in the interstadials and then decreases more or less constantly toward stadial values. However, the tropical records have a tendency to maintain dark interstadial color on a similar level over several centuries. The following centennial-scale lightening toward the next stadial appears to be delayed compared to the δ18O ice record. This “resistance” of the tropics to the interstadial-stadial transitions suggests a threshold response of the tropics to North Atlantic cooling.