Open AccessBay of Bengal Exhibits Warming Trend During the Younger Dryas: Implications of AMOC
Author(s) -
Panmei Champoungam,
Divakar Naidu Pothuri,
Mohtadi Mahyar
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
geochemistry, geophysics, geosystems
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.928
H-Index - 136
ISSN - 1525-2027
DOI - 10.1002/2017gc007075
Subject(s) - younger dryas , bay , northern hemisphere , geology , oceanography , climatology , thermohaline circulation , sea surface temperature , holocene , bengal , forcing (mathematics)
A sharp decline in temperature during the Younger Dryas (YD) preceding the current warmer Holocene is well documented in climate archives from the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes. Although the magnitude of YD cooling varied spatially, the response of YD cooling was well documented in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but not in the Indian Ocean. Here we investigate whether the modern remote forcing of tropical Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) by Northern Hemisphere climate changes holds true for events such as the YD. Our SST reconstruction from the western Bay of Bengal exhibits an overall warming of ∼1.8°C during the YD. We further compared our data with other existing Mg/Ca‐based SST records from the Northern Indian Ocean and found no significant negative SST anomalies in both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal compared to pre‐ and post‐YD, suggesting that no apparent cooling occurred during the YD in the Northern Indian Ocean. In contrast, most part of the YD exhibits positive SST anomalies in the Northern Indian Ocean that coincide with the slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation during this period.