The Oceans and Rapid Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future

Ocean impacts on Earth′s climate are due to thermal, freshwater, and dynamic interactions between elements of the climate system. The Oceans and Rapid Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future presents a unique multidisciplinary perspective on rapid past and possible future climate change. By focusing on ocean processes in conjunction with other climatic elements, the authors of this volume address fundamental unresolved issues of climatology and paleoclimatology, including factors that may influence internal long–term variability of the climate system. Discussions of paleoclimatic and paleoceanographic reconstructions parallel efforts in modeling past and future, colder and warmer, climates. A significant resource for scientists, researchers, students and others interested in paleoclimatology, paleoceanography, and the future of Earth′s climate system.

Preface
Dan Seidov, Bernd J. Haupt, and Mark Maslin vii

Ocean Currents of Change: Introduction
Eric J. Barron and Dan Seidov 1

Section I: Data and Climate Models: Windows to the Past

Synthesis of the Nature and Causes of Rapid Climate TransitionsDuring the Quaternary
Mark Maslin, Dan Seidov, and John Lowe 9

The Big Climate Amplifier Ocean Circulation–SeaIce–Storminess–Dustiness–Albedo
Wallace S. Broecker 53

Stochastic Resonance in the North Atlantic: FurtherInsights
R. B. Alley, S. Anandakrishnan, P. Jung, and A. Clough57

Late Holocene (cal ka) Trends and Century–Scale Variability ofN. Iceland Marine Records: Measures of Surface Hydrography,Productivity, and Land/Ocean Interactions
John T. Andrews, Greta B. Kristjansdottir, Aslaug Geirsdottir,Jorunn Hardarddttir, Gudrun Helgadottir, Amy E. Sveinsbjomdottir,Anne E. Jennings, and L. Micaela Smith 69

Changes of Potential Density Gradients in the Northwestern NorthAtlantic During the Last Climatic Cycle Based on a MultiproxyApproach
Claude Hillaire–Marcel, Anne de Vernal, Laurence Candon, GuyBilodeau, and Joseph Stoner 83

Lower Circumpolar Deep Water Flow Through the SW Pacific Gatewayfor the Last 190 Icy:
Evidence From Antarctic Diatoms
Catherine E. Stickley, Lionel Carter, I. Nick McCave, andPhil P.E. Weaver 101

Modeling abrupt Climatic Change During the Last Glaciation
Michel Crucifix, Philippe Tulkens, and Andre Berger 117

Simulating Climates of the Last Glacial Maximum and of theMid–Holocene: Wind Changes, Atmosphere–Ocean Interactions, andTropical Thermocline
Andrew B. G. Bush 135

Section II: Ocean and Climate Models: Bridges from Past toFuture

Ocean Bi–Polar Seesaw and Climate: Southern Versus NorthernMeltwater Impacts
Dan Seidov, Bernd J. Haupt, Eric J. Barron, and Mark Maslin147

Glacial–to–lnterglacial Changes of the Ocean Circulation andEolian Sediment Transport
Bernd J. Haupt, Dan Seidov, and Eric J. Barron 169

On the Response of the Atlantic Ocean to Climatic Changes inHigh Latitudes: Sensitivity Studies with a Sigma Coordinate OceanModel
Tal Ezer 199

The Effects of Vertical Mixing on the Circulation of the AABW inthe Atlantic
Igor V. Kamenkovich and Paul J. Coodman 217

The Influence of Deep Ocean Diffusivity on the TemporalVariability of the Thermohaline Circulation
Kotaro Sakai and W. Richard Peltier 227

The Climatic Influence of Drake Passage
H. Bjornsson and J. R. Toggweiler  243

Stability and Variability of the Thermohaline Circulation in thePast and Future: A Study With a Coupled Model of IntermediateComplexity
Andrey Ganopolski and Stefan Rahmstorf  261

The Future of the Thermohaline Circulation – A Perspective
Thomas E Stocker, Reto Knutti, and Gian–Kasper Plattner277