The Southern Ocean is perhaps the only region where fluctuations in the global influence of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) can be monitored unambiguously in single deep-sea cores. A carbon isotope record from benthic foraminifera in a Southern Ocean core reveals large and rapid changes in the flux of NADW during the last deglaciation, and an abrupt increase in the NADW production rate which immediately preceded large-scale melting of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. This sudden strengthening of the NADW thermoha-line cell provides strong evidence for the importance of NADW in glacial-interglacial climate change.
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Charles, C., Fairbanks, R. Evidence from Southern Ocean sediments for the effect of North Atlantic deep-water flux on climate. Nature 355, 416–419 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1038/355416a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/355416a0
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