Millennial-scale cold reversals in the high latitudes of both hemispheres interrupted the last transition from full glacial to interglacial climate conditions. The presence of the Younger Dryas stadial (approximately 12.9 to approximately 11.7 kyr ago) is established throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere, but the global timing, nature and extent of the event are not well established. Evidence in mid to low latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere, in particular, has remained perplexing. The debate has in part focused on the behaviour of mountain glaciers in New Zealand, where previous research has found equivocal evidence for the precise timing of increased or reduced ice extent. The interhemispheric behaviour of the climate system during the Younger Dryas thus remains an open question, fundamentally limiting our ability to formulate realistic models of global climate dynamics for this time period. Here we show that New Zealand's glaciers retreated after approximately 13 kyr bp, at the onset of the Younger Dryas, and in general over the subsequent approximately 1.5-kyr period. Our evidence is based on detailed landform mapping, a high-precision (10)Be chronology and reconstruction of former ice extents and snow lines from well-preserved cirque moraines. Our late-glacial glacier chronology matches climatic trends in Antarctica, Southern Ocean behaviour and variations in atmospheric CO(2). The evidence points to a distinct warming of the southern mid-latitude atmosphere during the Younger Dryas and a close coupling between New Zealand's cryosphere and southern high-latitude climate. These findings support the hypothesis that extensive winter sea ice and curtailed meridional ocean overturning in the North Atlantic led to a strong interhemispheric thermal gradient during late-glacial times, in turn leading to increased upwelling and CO(2) release from the Southern Ocean, thereby triggering Southern Hemisphere warming during the northern Younger Dryas.

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Mountain glaciers worldwide have undergone net recession over the past century in response to atmospheric warming 1 , but the extent to which this warming reflects natural versus anthropogenic climate change remains uncertain 2,3 . Between about 11,500 years ago and the nineteenth century, progressive atmospheric cooling over the European Alps induced glacier expansion 2,4-6 , culminating with several large-scale advances during the seventeen to nineteenth centuries 3 . However, it is unclear whether this glacier behaviour reflects global or a more regional forcing. Here we reconstruct glacier fluctuations in the Southern Alps of New Zealand for the past 11,000 years using 10 Be exposure ages. We use those fluctuations to estimate the associated temperature variations. On orbital to submillennial timescales, changes in glacier snowlines in New Zealand were linked to regional climate and oceanographic variability and were asynchronous with snowline variations in European glaciers. We attribute this asynchrony to the migration of the intertropical convergence zone. In light of this persistent asynchrony, we suggest that the net glacier recession and atmospheric warming in both regions over the past century is anomalous in the context of earlier Holocene variability and corresponds with anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases.The Southern Alps are well positioned to record Holocene climate changes 7 . Situated on New Zealand's South Island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, this mountain range lies in the zone of interaction between the belts of subtropical highs and subpolar lows that demarcate the westerly wind belt, whereas South Island inflects the subtropical front where subtropical and subantarctic water masses converge (Fig. 1). Located in a highprecipitation maritime environment, glaciers of the Southern Alps are highly sensitive monitors of atmospheric temperature because of rapid ice throughflow from accumulation to melting zones 8 . Therefore, moraine ridges can be used to reconstruct the former geometries of glaciers, enabling estimation of former equilibriumline (snowline) altitudes that reflect atmospheric temperatures. Here we combine moraine geomorphology with high-precision 10 Be surface-exposure dating 7,9 , to reconstruct glacier fluctuations and atmospheric temperatures in the Southern Alps during the Holocene interglaciation. We then compare this reconstruction LETTERS NATURE GEOSCIENCE

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