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Expansion of Antarctic Bottom Water driven by Antarctic warming in the last deglaciation

Nature Geoscience volume 19, pages 113–119 (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Past atmospheric CO2 fluctuations are thought to be intricately tied to ocean circulation changes involving Southern Ocean and North Atlantic dynamics. The ocean’s capability to store carbon has been linked to the expansion and contraction of southern-sourced waters, but their provenance and structure remain poorly characterized in the past. Here we present neodymium isotope data from the Weddell–Enderby Basin, placing constraints on the spatiotemporal distribution of Antarctic Bottom Water in the Atlantic and Indian sectors of the Southern Ocean over the past 32,000 years. Our data reveal that glacial Antarctic Bottom Water was substantially contracted, with large volumes of the deep Southern Ocean occupied by carbon-rich Circumpolar Deep Waters sourced from the Pacific Ocean, conducive for lowering atmospheric CO2. During the last deglaciation, Antarctic Bottom Water expanded in two steps coinciding with Antarctic warming. This expansion drove Southern Ocean destratification, which possibly contributed to contemporaneous atmospheric CO2 rises. Different from the view that the North Atlantic processes dominated deglacial deep South Atlantic water-mass changes, our results indicate only limited influence from northern-sourced waters. Instead, Antarctic Bottom Water dynamics played a critical role in regulating deep ocean circulation and thereby carbon exchange between the deep Southern Ocean and the atmosphere.

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Fig. 1: Modern seawater ɛNd distributions alongside locations of studied sediment cores.
Fig. 2: The ɛNd time series.
Fig. 3: Simulated glacial ɛNd distributions under various conditions.
Fig. 4: Time slices of authigenic ɛNd distributions.
Fig. 5: New ɛNd reconstructions compared with other records over the past 32 kyr.

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Data availability

All analytical data are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17089583 (ref. 84).

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Kolevica for technical support and S. Szidat for radiocarbon measurements. We are also grateful to Z. Xiong, J. Wang, F. Jiang, G. Gao, L. Yang, P. Yang, A. Zhu, Y. Zhang and W. Qu for assistance with laboratory work. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 42576272 and 42106217 to H.H.), the Taishan Scholars Project Funding (grant no. TSQN202312283 to H.H.) and the Laboratory for Marine Geology, Qingdao Marine Science and Technology Center (grant no. MGQNLM-KF202102 to H.H.). J.Y. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 42330403 and W2511037). Y.L. acknowledges funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 42476198). S.W. acknowledges fundings from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - Walter Benjamin-Programm (grant no. WU 1062 1-1) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences-Pioneer Hundred Talents Program (grant no. E5710403). S.L.J. acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant nos. 200020_192631 and 200021_163003). P.B. acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant no. 101065424, project OxyQuant. F.P. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant no. 101137601, project ClimTip. T.A.R.’s contribution was completed at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute in Germany. We thank the crew of RV Polarstern during research cruise PS118 for their help in recovering seawater samples used in this study (grant no. AWI_PS118_04).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laoshan Laboratory, Qingdao, China

    Huang Huang & Jimin Yu

  2. Qingdao Marine Science and Technology Center, Qingdao, China

    Huang Huang & Jimin Yu

  3. School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangdong, China

    Huang Huang, Yuanyang Hu & Yimin Luo

  4. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Guangdong, China

    Huang Huang & Yimin Luo

  5. GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Marcus Gutjahr & Patrick Blaser

  6. Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Frerk Pöppelmeier

  7. Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Bremerhaven, Germany

    Gerhard Kuhn, Thomas A. Ronge & Lester Lembke-Jene

  8. Institute of Earth Sciences, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Jörg Lippold

  9. Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Thomas A. Ronge

  10. Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Shuzhuang Wu, Patrick Blaser & Samuel L. Jaccard

  11. State Key Laboratory of Deep-Sea Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sanya, China

    Shuzhuang Wu

  12. Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Jimin Yu

  13. SKLLQG, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, China

    Jimin Yu

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  1. Huang Huang
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Contributions

H.H. designed the project. S.W. and L.L.-J. collected the core samples with assistance from G.K. H.H. and Y.H. performed Nd extraction and separation. H.H. and M.G. conducted the Nd isotope analyses with support from Y.H. F.P. carried out the model simulations. J.L. analysed the radiocarbon data. T.A.R. and H.H. developed the age models. H.H., J.Y., S.L.J., P.B., F.P. and M.G. contributed to data interpretation. H.H. wrote and revised the paper with input from all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Huang Huang.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Dimitris Evangelinos and Brian Haley for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: James Super, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Modern hydrographic data along the Sec-E transect.

a. Oxygen concentration27,49. b. Salinity27,49. c. Seawater ɛNd profile27,49 alongside locations of sediment cores. Small black dots in all panels indicate modern hydrographic sampling locations. White arrows mark the pathway of Weddell Sea Deep Water (WSDW). The location of the Sec-E transect is shown in Fig. 1. Together, these panels illustrate that the spatial distribution of ɛNd closely follows the modern water mass structure. WSDW=Weddell Sea Deep Water; LCDW= Lower Circumpolar Deep Water; NADW=North Atlantic Deep Water. Figure generated using Ocean Data View50 with bathymetric data from the Gridded Bathymetry Data GEBCO_2020 grid51.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Locations of hydrographic sites PS118_24, ER-14, S4, and 104, along with the studied sediment core sites.

Red stars indicate the locations of PS118_24, ER-14, S4, and 104. Small black dots in all panels indicate modern hydrographic sampling locations for seawater ɛNd. WSDW=Weddell Sea Deep Water; LCDW= Lower Circumpolar Deep Water; DSW=Dense Shelf Water. Figure generated using Ocean Data View50 with bathymetric data from the Gridded Bathymetry Data GEBCO_2020 grid51.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Comparison of core-top and seawater ɛNd distributions in the Weddell-Enderby Basin.

The seawater data is from station ER-14 in the Weddell-Enderby Basin85. Core-top ɛNd values from the two deep sites (PS2610 and PS2606) closely match the ɛNd signature of Weddell Sea Deep Water (WSDW). In contrast, the shallower site PS69/607 shows a higher core-top ɛNd of ~-8, consistent with the value of Lower Circumpolar Deep Water (LCDW). Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals reflecting measurement uncertainties (n = 61 for PS2610, PS2606 and PS69/907; others as reported in the cited references).

Extended Data Fig. 4 Comparison of core-top and seawater ɛNd distributions in the Atlantic sector.

Seawater data is from station 10427 and station S452 in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean (Extended Data Fig. 2). The core-top ɛNd values at PS1768, ODP Site 1091 and MD07-3076 show the most radiogenic ɛNd of -7.9, less radiogenic ɛNd of -8.5, and least radiogenic ɛNd of -9.2, which reflect influences of Lower Circumpolar Deep Water (LCDW), Weddell Sea Deep Water (WSDW) and North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) (Extended Data Fig. 1), respectively. Error bars in all panels indicate 95% confidence intervals reflecting measurement uncertainties (n = 61 for ODP1091; others as reported in the cited references).

Extended Data Fig. 5 Water column CTD and MUC ɛNd at station PS118_24.

The data demonstrate that benthic Nd flux can alter the εNd of bottom waters; however, under the modern vigorous circulation of the Drake Passage, this influence is confined to the near-bottom layer. The lowermost CTD depth was sampled 90 meters above the seafloor. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals reflecting measurement uncertainties (n = 14).

Extended Data Fig. 6 Comparison of REE ratios of leachates, detrital material, seawater, pore fluids, and various authigenic phases.

Small red squares indicate REE data from leachates of PS69/607, PS2606 and PS2610 in this study. Background small data points and shaded areas represent literature values from foraminifera (purple)86, seawater (blue)87,88,89, and pore fluids (green)83. The dashed line outlines a proposed ‘authigenic array’90, defined here by mixing between HREE-enriched seawater and MREE-enriched diagenetic ferromanganese nodules from the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone91. The grey field bounded by solid black lines marks a ‘detrital array’ reflecting mixtures of mid-ocean ridge basalt92, Greenland Archaean crust93, and Canadian Precambrian shield rocks94. Figure modified from Blaser et al. (2020)95.

Extended Data Fig. 7 Reductive leaching-, foraminifera-derived authigenic and detrital ɛNd records.

Error bars in all panels indicate 95% confidence intervals reflecting measurement uncertainties (n = 61 for leachates; n = 4 for detrital and foraminifera). Although glacial ɛNd values as radiogenic as -4 are not observed in the modern open ocean in this region, such values have been consistently recorded in multiple archives, including leachates, opal18 and foraminifera76, across a range of sites with different sediment compositions. This widespread occurrence suggests that these signals are not due to local diagenetic alteration. Our model results (Fig. 3), which include a fully implemented Nd isotope cycle, show that under glacial conditions with sluggish circulation, increased benthic fluxes with elevated ɛNd values can generate a broad distribution of ɛNd = ~-4 in the deep ocean. We therefore interpret the more radiogenic ɛNd of glacial Lower Circumpolar Deep Water (LCDW) in the Atlantic sector as a modified seawater signal, rather than an artifact of sedimentary processes.

Extended Data Fig. 8 Different ɛNd distribution by changing the Pacific Deep Water signature.

The ɛNd endmember of Pacific Deep Warter (PDW) is increased by 2 epsilon units in this simulation. The upper panel shows the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) ɛNd distributions and the lower panel shows the ɛNd offset between the LGM and the Holocene. This figure demonstrates increasing PDW ɛNd alone cannot explain the observed ɛNd increase in the LGM South Atlantic.

Extended Data Fig. 9 Complied ɛNd time series.

North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) endmember value is from the gravity core GGC35, piston core CDH36 and multi-core MC37, which are retrieved from the New England Slope (40˚N, 69˚W, ~1800)31. The color bars along the y-axis represent bottom water ɛNd ranges in the South Atlantic and Atlantic sector of the SO27,52 for different water masses. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals reflecting measurement uncertainties (n = 61 for PS2610, ODP1091, PS2606 and PS69/907; others as reported in the cited references).

Extended Data Fig. 10 The ɛNd data used to define the endmembers for time-slices of authigenic ɛNd distributions.

Shown in Fig. 3. a. Locations of sediment cores. b. Core-top. c. Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). d. Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1). e. Younger Dryas (YD). Black diamonds mark cores from the Weddell–Enderby Basin; black squares mark cores from the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. In the left panels, colored lines represent the mean ɛNd values for each endmember, and shadings are shown as ± 2 standard deviations around the mean. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals reflecting measurement uncertainties (n = 61 for PS2610, ODP1091, PS2606 and PS69/907; others as reported in the cited references6,10,36,37). WSDW=Weddell Sea Deep Water; LCDW=Lower Circumpolar Deep Water; NADW=North Atlantic Deep Water; YD=Younger Dryas; HS1=Heinrich Stadial 1; LGM=Last Glacial Maximum. Figure generated using Ocean Data View50 with bathymetric data from the Gridded Bathymetry Data GEBCO_2020 grid51.

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Huang, H., Gutjahr, M., Hu, Y. et al. Expansion of Antarctic Bottom Water driven by Antarctic warming in the last deglaciation. Nat. Geosci. 19, 113–119 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01853-7

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