Millennial-scale atmospheric CO₂ variations during the Marine Isotope Stage 6 period (190–135 kyr BP)

Abstract

Abstract. Understanding natural carbon cycle/climate feedbacks on various time scales is highly relevant to reliably predict future climate changes. During the last two glacial periods, climate variations on millennial time scales were observed but the background conditions and duration of climate variations are different. Here we make use of contrasting climatic boundary conditions during the last two glacial periods to gain insight into the co-occurring carbon cycle changes. We reconstruct a new high-resolution record of atmospheric CO2 from the EPICA Dome C (EDC) ice core during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 (190 to 135 kyr BP). During long stadials in the North Atlantic (NA) region, atmospheric CO2 appears to be associated with the coeval Antarctic temperature changes at millennial time scale connected to the bipolar seesaw process. However, during one short stadial in the NA, atmospheric CO2 variation is negligible and the relationship between temperature variation in EDC and atmospheric CO2 is unclear. We suggest that the amplitude of CO2 variation may be affected by the duration of perturbations of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). In addition, similar to the last glacial period, in the earliest MIS 6 (MIS 6e and 6d, corresponding to 189 to 169 kyr BP), Carbon Dioxide Maxima (CDM) show different lags with respect to the corresponding abrupt CH4 jumps, the latter reflecting rapid warming in the Northern Hemisphere (NH). During MIS 6e at around 181.5 ± 0.3 kyr BP, CDM 6e.2 lags abrupt warming in the NH by only 200 ± 360 yrs. During MIS 6d which corresponds to CDM 6d.1 (171.1 ±0.2 kyr BP) and CDM 6d.2 (175.4 ± 0.4 kyr BP), the lag is much longer, i.e., 1,400 ± 375 yrs on average. The timing of CO2 variations with respect to abrupt warming in the NH may be affected by a major change in the organization of the AMOC from MIS 6e to MIS 6d.