Linking Glacial-Interglacial states to multiple equilibria of climate
Name
2018GL077019.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.54 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Ferreira, David
Marshall, John
Ito, Takamitsu
McGee, David
Date Issued
September 2018
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Citation
Ferreira, David et. al., "Linking Glacial‐Interglacial States to Multiple Equilibria of Climate." Geophysical Research Letters 45, 17 (September 2018): 9160-70 doi. 10.1029/2018GL077019 ©2018 Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Glacial-interglacial cycles are often described as an amplified global response of the climate to perturbations in solar radiation caused by oscillations of Earth's orbit. However, it remains unclear whether internal feedbacks are large enough to account for the radically different glacial and interglacial states. Here we provide support for an alternative view: Glacial-interglacial states are multiple equilibria of the climate system that exist for the same external forcing. We show that such multiple equilibria resembling glacial and interglacial states can be found in a complex coupled general circulation model of the ocean-atmosphere-sea ice system. The multiple states are sustained by ice-albedo feedback modified by ocean heat transport and are not caused by the bistability of the ocean's overturning circulation. In addition, expansion/contraction of the Southern Hemisphere ice pack over regions of upwelling, regulating outgassing of CO2 to the atmosphere, is the primary mechanism behind a large pCO2 change between states. ©2018. The Authors.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL077019
