Polar Front

Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) terrestrial proxy records (speleothem, NW Scotland; tree rings, Morocco) from close to the centres of action of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) indicate that the MCA was characterized by a pervasive positive phase of the NAO(1). Spatial gradients across Europe in this MCA synoptic climatological interpretation were analyzed using the Proxy Surrogate Reconstruction approach based

Silicon isotopic signatures (delta30Si) of water column silicic acid (Si(OH)4) were measured in the Southern Ocean, along a meridional transect from South Africa (Subtropical Zone) down to 57° S (northern Weddell Gyre). This provides the first reported data of a summer transect across the whole Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). delta30Si variations are large in the upper 1000 m, reflecting the effect of the silica pump superimposed upon meridional water transfer across the ACC: the transport of Antarctic surface waters northward by a net Ekman drift and their convergence and mixing with warmer upper-ocean Si-depleted waters to the north. Using Si isotopic signatures, we determine different mixing interfaces: the Antarctic Surface Water (AASW), the Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW), and thermoclines in the low latitude areas. The residual silicic acid concentrations of end-members control the delta30Si alteration of the mixing products and with the exception of AASW, all mixing ...

Individual specialisation is widespread and can affect a population’s ecological and evolutionary dynamics. Whether intra-specific niche differences can influence reproductive investment was examined in a marine mammal, the southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina), whose females were known to forage in two different areas during the austral winter. The study was conducted at Kerguelen Islands (49°21′S, 70°18′E), southern Indian Ocean, in

Sooty (Puffinus griseus) and short-tailed (P. tenuirostris) shearwaters are abundant seabirds that range widely across global oceans. Understanding the foraging ecology of these species in the Southern Ocean is important for monitoring and ecosystem conservation and management. Tracking data from sooty and short-tailed shearwaters from three regions of New Zealand and Australia were combined with at-sea observations of shearwaters in the Southern Ocean, physical oceanography, near-surface copepod distributions, pelagic trawl data, and synoptic near-surface winds. Shearwaters from all three regions foraged in the Polar Front zone, and showed particular overlap in the region around 140 degrees E. Short-tailed shearwaters from South Australia also foraged in Antarctic waters south of the Polar Front. The spatial distribution of shearwater foraging effort in the Polar Front zone was matched by patterns in large-scale upwelling, primary production, and abundances of copepods and myctophi...

A new jet stream description, defined as the geostrophic streamline of maximum average velocity is proposed. An objective algorithm for detecting and tracking the jet has been developed, tested and applied to the NCEP/NCAR 200-hPa geopotential height in the Southern Hemisphere for the period 1958–2002. The results show the variability of the double character of the Southern Hemisphere jet, with a marked seasonality. During the warm season, a single jet can be found around 40°S, while autumn and winter are characterized by a clear double jet structure, with a strong and dominant subtropical jet located around 30°S and a polar front jet, progressively displaced toward southern latitudes and reaching 60°S by the end of the cold season. In general, a trend toward slower subtropical jets and stronger polar front jets has been detected during the study period. The Southern Annular Mode appears as a main modulator of the latitude and strength of the polar front jet, influencing to a minor extent its subtropical counterpart. The ENSO cycle strongly modifies the latitude and specially the strength of the subtropical jet, affecting its preferred wavenumber as well. Nevertheless, the effect of this oscillation seems fairly restricted in the Pacific, thus limiting the ability of this jet to drive the El Niño teleconnections along the Southern Hemisphere. The consistency of the results, when compared with previous jet climatologies, suggests that the new approach is a reliable jet-tracking method, thus providing a new tool to analyze climatic variability at hemispheric scales.

A qualitative and quantitative study of recent organic-walled dinoflagellate dinocysts recovered in sediments has been undertaken in the coastal zone of the Gulf of Tehuantepec, Mexico. A sediment core was collected in 2004 with a Reineck-type corer using a plastic tube (7 cm i.d); and it was subsampled at 0.3 cm intervals down to 10 cm depth and then at 1 cm intervals at further depths. The 210Pb and 137Cs-derived sedimentation and mass accumulation rates at the site were found to vary from 0.033 to 0.209 cm yr-1, and from 0.05 to 0.29 g cm-2 yr-1., respectively. The cysts concentrations ranged between 477 and 2300 cysts g-1 and the cysts fluxes between 68 a 494 cysts cm-2 yr-1. Twenty-three cyst taxa were identified: Brigantedinium spp., Polysphaeridium zoharyii, Bitectatodinium spongium, Spiniferites delicatus, Quinquecuspis concreta, Echinidinium transparantum, Operculodinium centrocarpum, Selenopemphix quanta, Type Echinidinium granulatum, Echinidinium aculeatum, Protoperidinium americanum, Echinidinium delicatum, Selenopemphix nephroides, Cyst of Protoperidinum stellatum, Lingulodinium machaerophorum, Islandinium spp., Votadinium spinosum, Polykrikos kofoidii, Pentapharsodinium dalei, Tuberculodinium vancampoe, Spiniferites mirabilis, Votadinium calvum and Nematosphaeropsis labyrinthus. The assemblages included cysts of both phototrophic and heterotrophic species, with variation of their respective abundance reflecting changes in the trophic structure of the upper water mass, especially after 1950, with a decrease from ~30% to 15% of photototrophic species, likely as a response to pollution (including cultural eutrophication) created by the industrial development of the adjacent coastal zone. Brigantedinium spp., Polysphaeridium zoharyii and Bitectatodinium spongium, were the dominant species found in the core and are most likely influenced by the seasonal upwelling that characterize the study area, as indicated by the predominance of planktonic foraminiferal species Globigerina bulloides and Globigerinita glutinata throughout the core. Potentially toxic species such as Polysphaeridium zohary (cyst of Pyrodinium bahamense var. compressum) were also observed all along the sediment core and new analysis are to be performed to further investigate their presence in the zone.

The Holocene climate of the Southern Ocean is not well understood, mainly because of the lack of high-resolution reconstructions of ocean surface properties. Here we present a 12,500-yr-long, decadal-scale record of Holocene sea-surface temperatures and sea- ice presence from the Polar Front of the East Atlantic Southern Ocean. The record shows gradual climate change, with no abrupt Neoglacial cooling, and

We identify a universal criterion for the onset of a nonequilibrium Ising-Bloch (NIB) transition, and describe the behavior near the bifurcation by a generic amplitude equation. We found that a NIB transition is caused by an antisymmetric eigenvector passing the translational mode of the system at a critical point. In this context we discuss Hamiltonian and dissipative systems. We report on a NIB in nonlinear optics, manifesting itself in a transition from static to moving polarization fronts.

A new synthesis of diatom assemblage data from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 178 suggests that the Pacific margin of the Antarctic Peninsula underwent a transition from a shallow shelf to an overdeepened shelf in the early Pliocene. This modification of the marine-scape was due to a relatively brief interval of erosion begun at 5.2 Ma. The erosion was caused by high frequency advances of a super-inflated Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet (APIS). The frequent advances of the higher elevation ice sheet were a consequence of abundant moisture delivered to the region as the Polar Front migrated southward. By 5.12 Ma, ice streams incised foredeepened glacial troughs into basement on the inner shelf. Sediment eroded from the inner shelf was transported through cross-shelf troughs and deposited in large trough-mouth-fan depocenters on the upper slope. Overdeepened shelf conditions became widespread as troughs widened and intra-trough banks beveled. By 4.25 Ma, trough-mouth-fan construction ceased and subsequent advances of the APIS have been infrequent. We propose that the reduced frequency of grounding events signaled the transition to a modern foredeepened and overdeepened shelf. We hypothesize that a new glacial dynamic emerged in the early Pliocene because overdeepening led to accelerated heat exchange between the ocean and APIS in two ways. Firstly, the overdeepened shelf required that a larger area of the grounded ice sheet's marine terminus be in contact with the ocean. Secondly, erosional deepening of the outer shelf was equivalent to lowering a shelf edge sill that permitted frequent and voluminous intrusion of warm circumpolar deep waters that upwell in the region. The resultant accelerated melting at the APIS marine terminus, caused the super-inflated APIS to deflate on the mainland, which further decreased the possibility that grounded ice could advance on the overdeepened shelf.► We propose the overdeepening hypothesis. ► The hypothesis states that overdeepening of the shelf altered glacial dynamics. ► Diatom data suggests that the peninsula overdeepened at 4.25 Ma. ► The frequency of ice sheet advance reduced after the margin overdeepened.

As global end-member environments, the polar regions are the bellwether of global climate change. Climate modelling suggests that the polar regions are more profoundly impacted by global warming than low latitude regions, and recent warming documented in Arctic and Antarctic environments might be a result of this polar amplification process. It is not yet clear that the short-term records of recent warming represent the start of a long-term trend, however, stratigraphic records of past significant high latitude warm events likely ...