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Warmer shallow Atlantic during deglaciation and early Holocene due to weaker overturning circulation

Nature Geoscience volume 18, pages 787–792 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Model simulations project that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) will weaken in response to global warming, but with large uncertainty. The past 20 kyr are a prime target for model validation, as boundary conditions are reasonably well known, and the AMOC and climate experienced dramatic changes during this period. Here we present eight subsurface Atlantic temperature reconstructions based on benthic foraminiferal magnesium-to-lithium ratios, and compare the timing and amplitude of reconstructed changes with those in two coupled climate model simulations. We show that compared with the last glaciation and the past 8 kyr, the shallow (~500–1,100 m water depth) tropical North Atlantic was anomalously warm during most of the last deglaciation and early Holocene, which the models suggest is due to a relatively weak AMOC that reduced advection and allowed heat to accumulate. Our temperature reconstructions imply that the AMOC strengthened ~14.7 kyr ago and during the early Holocene (from ~12 to 8 kyr ago), suggesting that enhanced northward heat transport contributed to Northern Hemisphere warming and deglacial melting at these times. The transient model simulations predict features of temperature reconstruction with varying success, possibly because deglacial and Holocene AMOC strength are poorly constrained, and not accurately simulated.

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Fig. 1: Locations of 11 sediment cores in the western Atlantic transect and their temperature reconstructions.
Fig. 2: Comparison of reconstructed temperature changes in the upper Atlantic, global mean surface and global mean ocean, and AMOC variability during the past 22 kyr.
Fig. 3: Model–data comparison of AMOC and Demerara Rise temperature changes during the past 22 kyr.

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Data availability

All data generated during this study are available as source data files and are also uploaded on the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information database (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/study/41040). Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

Data files and R scripts for age uncertainty analyses are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15192546 (ref. 75).

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Acknowledgements

We thank WHOI Seafloor Samples Repository for curating the samples, and WHOI NOSAMS for radiocarbon analyses. We thank K. Pietro, G. Swarr and D. Belobokova for technical assistance. We thank M. Cook for the radiocarbon data for core KNR159-5-14GGC. This work was funded by US National Science Foundation (NSF) grants OCE-2114579 (to D.W.O.) and OCE-1811305 (to D.W.O. and W.G.), and by WHOI’s Investment in Science Program (to D.W.O.). W.L. acknowledges financial support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China and Shanghai Pilot Program for Basic Research. Z.L. acknowledges support from NSF grants AGS-2202860 and AGS-2303577.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

    Wanyi Lu

  2. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    Wanyi Lu, Delia W. Oppo, Alan Condron, Weifu Guo, Anya V. Hess & Shouyi Wang

  3. Atmospheric Science Program, Department of Geography, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Zhengyu Liu

  4. Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Chenyu Zhu

  5. School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Jean Lynch-Stieglitz

  6. MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Sciences & Engineering, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    Shouyi Wang

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Contributions

D.W.O. conceived the project. D.W.O. and W.L. managed the project. W.L. performed the clean lab work and data collection, with contributions from W.G., A.V.H. and S.W. W.L. and D.W.O. interpreted the data. J.L.-S. provided KNR166-2 processed samples. Z.L., C.Z. and A.C. provided and discussed model data. W.L. and D.W.O. wrote the paper. All authors contributed to the discussion and the final version of the paper.

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Correspondence to Wanyi Lu.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Regional map of Florida Straits and the locations of five sediment cores, and the temperature and salinity depth profiles56,58.

Low-salinity AAIW contributes to waters in the western side of the Strait (Florida Margin side), especially from ~400 m to the bottom (including core #6 and #7); whereas AAIW is confined to below ~550 m on the eastern side of the Strait (Cay Sal Bank and Great Bahama Bank side). Above these water depths (core #8 and #9), waters are increasingly dominated by North Atlantic subtropical waters. Core #10 (1057 m) is located in the Providence Channel, along the southward pathway of upper NADW and also under the influence of deep subtropical gyre waters. The map was generated using Ocean Data View software55. Map (top) created with Ocean Data View55. Panels adapted with permission from: ref. 56, Wiley; ref. 58, Wiley.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Core-top H. elegans Li/Ca, Mg/Ca, and Mg/Li vs. modern BWT.

Note that intra-lab Mg/Ca and Li/Ca offsets at WHOI have been corrected. To reconcile the Mg/Li inter-lab offset between WHOI and INSTAAR, a separate linear equation is fit to WHOI data and used for the down-core Mg/Li records generated at WHOI.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Age models of 11 sediment cores.

Error bars and ribbons show the minimum and maximum 95% confidence ranges determined from the BACON output.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Age models for cores KNR197-3-25GGC (#3), 46CDH (#4) and 9GGC (#5).

Thick colored lines correspond to the median proxy ensemble member, and ribbons denote 95% highest-density probability ranges. Solid symbols denote raw proxy data on their median age. The age model of 46CDH (#4) was constrained by 14C dates and one δ18O tie-point16. If 25GGC and 9GGC age models are only constrained by 14C dates, there is an offset of δ18O maxima between 9GGC and 46CDH at ~14.5 ka, and an offset of δ13C minima between 25GGC and 46CDH at ~9.8 ka (a). We used these isotope peaks as additional age tie-points for the final age models (b). Solid diamonds in the bottom panels indicate radiocarbon-based age control on the median age, and open diamonds indicate isotope tie-points.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Planktic foraminifera abundance records at core EW9302-11GGC (#11).

Due to the species abundance changes at ~200 cm depth, we used 14C dates from G. bulloides at depths < 200 cm, and from N. pachyderma at depths > 200 cm where there was an option.

Extended Data Fig. 6 The 11 temperature reconstructions from main Fig. 1 in separate panels.

Thick colored lines correspond to the median proxy ensemble member, and ribbons denote 95% highest-density probability ranges. Solid symbols denote raw proxy data on their median age. Colored squares at zero age indicate modern core site temperatures. For core #8 and 10, green and pink bars mark the temperature range in several glacial samples, respectively.

Extended Data Fig. 7 Western Atlantic section temperature anomalies during deglaciation in two transient simulations.

The section location is the same as the one in Fig. 1a. Note the color bar difference between TraCE (a, c) and iTRACE (b, d). Note that the northern shallow tropics cool (warm) with an AMOC weakening (strengthening) in TraCE (a, c). In iTRACE, the anomalies are of opposite sign, and moreover, are largest in the tropics (b, d).

Extended Data Fig. 8 Imposed meltwater flux (MWF), simulated AMOC variability, and Demerara Rise temperature evolution at the upper Demerara Rise in TraCE and iTRACE.

a, Meltwater flux in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and Southern Hemisphere (SH). In panel b and c, the raw and smoothed model time series are shown as dotted and solid lines, respectively, with the 1000-year smoothing meant to mimic the effect of bioturbation on the sedimentary records. In panel d, simulated temperature in two adjacent layers is compared to evaluate the effects of sea level changes on temperature records.

Extended Data Fig. 9 Cross-plots of AMOC vs. temperature anomaly at Demerara Rise vs. CO2 in model simulations.

(a)-(b) ALL forcing in iTRACE with centennial and annual resolution, respectively; (c)-(h) ALL, MWF, ICE, and GHG simulations in TraCE. Cross-plots of CO2 vs AMOC (g) and vs temperature anomaly at Demerara Rise (h) in TraCE. Data points are color-coded by time interval and connected with solid arrows showing the progression from the LGM to the Holocene. Except for (b), all model data are 100-year averages. Averaged data are shown for clarity, but note that averaging changes the relationships across rapid transitions (for example, the HS1 to Bølling transition in panel (a) vs. panel (b)).

Extended Data Table 1 Site locations
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Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

A single file containing all source data.

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Lu, W., Oppo, D.W., Liu, Z. et al. Warmer shallow Atlantic during deglaciation and early Holocene due to weaker overturning circulation. Nat. Geosci. 18, 787–792 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01751-y

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